


Standard Operating Procedures

by Winterstar



Series: This is battle; this is war. [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Bondage, Break Up, Dom Tony, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fisting, Hurt Steve, Hurt/Comfort, Impact Play, M/M, Make Up, Porn With Plot, Self-Sacrifice, Sex Toys, Sub Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2397716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story to mend broken hearts.</p><p>Tony deals with his break up with Steve as the team re-forms and they all move in together in his Tower. Through painful realizations both Tony and Steve hurt one another as they grow to know they are made for one another. A story of pain and promise, self-sacrifice, and hope. A story where outside forces might end their new foundation even before they've mended it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“He’s worried.”

“He’s got nothing to worry about,” Tony says and scowls when Bruce offers him that look, the look that doesn’t judge but at the same time tells Tony he’s not thinking about the situation from Steve’s perspective. “Okay, okay, what’s he got to worry about?”

Bruce picks up his glasses from the lab bench and then folds his arms; the glasses dangling from his fingertips. “You said that your relationship had been built on somewhat of an imbalance?”

Tony hates wading into the deep of his past relationship with Steve, it worked and then it didn’t. It’s that simple, but it isn’t – it never is. “We had an understanding, it worked for us.”

“But then it didn’t.”

Tony startles a little at Bruce’s echo of his thoughts but then shrugs. “Yeah, it felt all wrong the last time.” He throws himself onto the ratty couch with its threadbare armrests and lumpy cushions. He’s had it since college and he loves it. “Can I tell you a little something?”

“What’s that?”

“I want him back,” Tony confesses and his heart throbs a new beat in his chest, hurts and pings like he’s run a thousand miles. 

“That isn’t a secret, Tony. I think all of us know that,” Bruce says as he crosses the room. “What do you really want to say?”

“In any way,” Tony says and looks away. He’d do anything for Steve, anything. He loves him, the soul, the dark edges of Steve, the part of Steve so loyal that he’s stupid with it, the Steve who tests and challenges him, the Steve who has become the definition of life and love and heart to Tony. 

“That might not be healthy,” Bruce says and settles on a stool next to the couch. “Listen, you love him, but you have to know that you love who he is now and who he will someday be. Lots of people can love what they have in their hands, but the question remains, can you love the potential of who they might be?”

Tony lays his head back and stares up into the ceiling. He doesn’t see the scope of the ceiling, the many outlets for JARVIS to feed him the hologram, or the pipes or the tiles. He sees the matrix of his love for Steve. The lattice work – it’s there and he believes that Steve would be open to it, would want to start a new.

“Maybe something new?” Tony says.

“Something new?” 

“I don’t know, maybe we should try and redefine our relationship-.”

“More balance?”

“Switch it up, a little?” The thought titillates and excites Tony, but he has no idea if he’ll even be able to win Steve over, and even if Steve is interested in that kind of relationship with him – at all.

Bruce sighs and says, “I don’t think I want to know. But the fact remains that your relationship broke down because each of you allowed it to. The question is why?” 

“You know for a guy who isn’t that kind of doctor, you’re kind of good at this.” 

Bruce half smiles at Tony. “I spend a lot of time trying to figure out personalities so I can deal with things.”

Tony jumps up and claps his hands. “Well, consider it a good thing.”

Bruce twists around to watch Tony leave. “Where are you going?”

“I think I might ask the good Captain to lunch. It is lunchtime, isn’t it?” 

“It’s close enough,” Bruce says. “Did he move in yet?”

“Just the other day,” Tony says. “Sam and Steve appeared about dinner time two days ago. I’ve been trying to lay low, you know, play it cool.”

“How’s that working for you?” Bruce says with a snicker.

“Shut up and turn green or something,” Tony says as he enters the elevator. “Wish me luck.”

“I’m not sure I want to get involved.”

“Oh man, you already are, you already are.” Tony winks at him and then asks JARVIS to give him a lift up to Steve’s floor. The elevator closes and the car ascends. 

He cannot deny he’s nervous, though the idea of his palms sweating freaks him out. After all, he’s only going to ask Steve to go out for a bite to eat and the man is always hungry so it’s a given he’ll be up for going out. The thought that Steve might not want to come out, that Steve might decide that the best thing they can do on this newly formed team is to keep their distance does not escape his anxiety riddled heart. 

He runs hands through his hair and realizes he has no idea when the last time he actually brushed his hair or his teeth. He breathes into his sweaty hand, frowns. “Hey man, JARVIS do I smell?”

“My sensor indicate that you are emitting body odors.”

“Worse than usual?”

“No, sir, they are within your normal parameters.”

Tony does not ask why JARVIS has parameters set up for how much he stinks. He’ll have to investigate what the A.I. is doing in his spare time later. “All right then, let’s rock and roll.” The doors to Steve’s floor open and he walks to the curved marble stairs, climbs up the three steps, and inhales before he knocks.

It takes a few minutes before Steve answers and Tony is just about to query JARVIS on whether or not Steve went out or is still present somewhere else in the Tower when the door open.

Steve greets him in a t-shirt with a faded American flag on it and a pair of low cut jeans. His hair and demeanor look as if he’s been working out. As Tony peers around Steve, he glimpses boxes, papers, and books scattered around the large living room.

“Hey,” Tony says and swings his arms back to front, clapping. “Wanted to know if you were interested in-.”

“Steve, I finished with the kitchen where do you want me-.” The woman stops as she spots Tony. She’s pretty, Tony can admit that much. Her blonde hair is tied up in a messy bun, and she has on a t-shirt and jeans to match Steve’s. They look sweet, almost too sweet. The matching pair of them. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know. Avengers’ business?”

“Hmm,” Steve says and he’s obviously, clearly, and painfully uncomfortable.

Tony knows, deep in his chest, down in the pit of his stomach that she’s just not the girl next door, if there even was one, but she’s someone special, someone – shit. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have- I’m interrupting.”

She shakes her head and weaves her way through the stacks of boxes and columns of books. “No, I’m Sharon, Sharon Carter.” She reaches out and offers Tony her hand.

Steve blocks her. “I’m – this is Sharon Carter, Tony.”

For a second Tony relaxes a degree. Carter – she must be one of Peggy’s relatives. It makes sense. Steve probably knows her from his visitations with Peggy. “Good to meet you, any relation-.”

“Peggy’s my aunt,” Sharon says with a perky smile and she knocks an elbow at Steve that’s familiar and friendly. “But Steve and I live in the same apartment building in D.C.. Well, lived for him, I still live there.”

“Oh,” Tony says and inwardly curses. She is the girl next door, the cutsie little girl from next door with the blonde hair and the sweet smile. Tony hates her. “Nice that you could come up and help Capsicle move.”

“Sharon used to work at SHIELD,” Steve says and bites back his words. He regrets admitting it – the fact is written all over his face. “She was there when Fury was shot.”

“In your apartment,” Tony says and weighs his reaction as he glances between the two of them. “In the middle of the night.”

Sharon furrows her brow as she regards them. She’s not tracking and Tony’s both furious and happy that she doesn’t know. “I heard the shots, I was assigned by Director Fury to keep Captain America safe.”

“Lot of good that did,” Tony mutters.

“Tony,” Steve snaps and reaches out as if he might sling an arm over Sharon’s shoulders but stops the action midway. It doesn’t escape either Tony’s or Sharon’s notice. “Sharon is one of the good guys, or girls or dames, ladies, I mean ladies.”

Sharon laughs and her eyes sparkle as they light upon him. “Oh Steve, you’re hopeless. I’ll go work on the bathrooms while you two catch up.” She smiles again at Tony. “Nice to meet you, Mister Stark.”

She leaves and Tony doesn’t correct her, doesn’t invite her to call him by his first name. He whips back to Steve, seething heart racing in his chest. “Who the hell is she?”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Steve only shakes his head. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes it is, she was in your apartment in the middle of the night when Fury was shot?”

“No, she told you she lived next door,” Steve says. “And I don’t see how that’s relevant right now.”

“We were still together, that’s how it’s relevant. It’s obvious she’s got the hots for you. You do know how she looks at you,” Tony says.

“Yeah, Tony, I do.”

The simple words, those simple words shatter him, crack through him easily as if he’s only glass and thin and brittle. “You’re dating her.”

“Dating her,” he says and screws up his face with that crooked smile. “Not dating her, dating her.”

“What exactly does that mean,” Tony hisses and every irrational nerve fiber in his brain bristles and fires. “What does it mean?”

“It means, yes I’ve had a few dates, we’re dating,” Steve says and peers over his shoulder where Sharon, the cute little chicklet of the hour, wandered off. “We just started-.”

“Just started, just started doesn’t mean you come and help someone move,” Tony says and his voice pitches higher. He doesn’t give a fuck who hears him, especially Miss Cutsie Pants. 

Snatching Tony’s arm, Steve drags him outside the apartment onto the wide curved steps up to the double doors. Once the door is closed, Steve leans in and says, “We’re dating and that’s it. She happens to be in town for work. She’s with the CIA now.”

“You don’t help someone move if you’re not serious. You’ve slept with her,” Tony lashes out and he knows he’s stepping into fields he should leave fallow, but he can’t stop, can’t resist because not knowing hurts more. He hopes.

“I haven’t, if you have to know, and it really isn’t any of your business.”

“How long? How long have you been dating her?”

“A few weeks,” Steve says and doesn’t look Tony in the eyes.

“When I saw you at the café, you’d been seeing her then?” Tony says and the open need, the fact that he had hope for a new beginnging because of that conversation leaks all over the floor, like he cut a vein.

“Tony, that’s not relevant, if you’d rather, I’ll leave.” Steve grabs for the door knob but Tony halts him. 

“You can’t leave, you’re the team leader here.”

“It’s your idea, you lead,” Steve says and clenches his teeth.

“You know what, forget it, just forget it,” Tony says and heads back to the elevator.

Before he hits the button, Steve says, “You know, you left me.”

Tony doesn’t turn around, doesn’t face Steve. “I left because it was necessary. I called Sam to help you.”

“You were my only security.”

The words stop every one of those fried nerve endings in Tony’s brain. He narrows his eyes as he faces Steve. “What the hell does that mean?”

Steve isn’t looking at Tony, instead he bows his head and has his hands at his waist. “When we first started it was right after the whole alien invasion, right after I’d lost everything. Most people don’t get that from the time I woke up to the time Loki decided to play god was only a week for me.

“Less than that from the time Bucky died.” He clears his throat and glances upward to the ceiling and lights. “Fell, Bucky fell.”

When his gaze meets Tony’s the expression reminds him of the last moments before Tony left the cabin. “I-.”

“No, don’t Tony. You might be angry with me, you might hate me and think I’ve only betrayed your love and trust, but don’t think you’re the only injured party here. I came to you, to you with the fourth bead on because I needed that security. I needed someone, you, to hold onto, to know that this- this place, time, whatever is worth it.” Steve blinks too many times. “Yes, I understand now I probably asked too much, that I was too selfish, but I needed to know, I wanted to know-.”

“I offered it to you, I asked you to marry me.”

“Did you? Did you really, because all I really remember is that you threw a ring at me.”

“You’re going to get technical with me?” Tony says and he’s astounded how sly and manipulative Captain America can be.

“No,” Steve says and his shoulders – those broad, too impossibly strong, shoulders slump. “I just needed the security of having you with me, holding me, keeping me. I didn’t want anything more, I can’t have permanence, that’s not in the cards for me.”

The door opening behind them interrupts the conversation. Sharon peeks out and, with a smile, says, “I was going to order take out. Do you want pizza or Chinese?”

Steve doesn’t look immediately at Sharon because his face isn’t tooled, isn’t controlled enough to reveal to her. Tony steps in. “Pizza, the boy likes his pizza. Order a lot.”

She laughs and it is free of encumbrances so unlike any relationship Tony has with Steve. “Oh I know. Okay, pizza it is. You’re welcome to stay, Mister Stark.”

He glances between them, the words linger like frost in the morning. “No, no thanks. I’ve gotta be going.”

She nods and her smile dips for only a moment when Steve turns to her. Tony misses his expression, but he sees reflected in hers that Steve isn’t right, isn’t able to fix everything so easily. 

He calls out, “JARVIS, elevator?” The doors open. He enters and turns around to see that Steve has opened the door to his suite as Sharon follows him. “And it’s Tony.”

She turns, for only a second, her smile open, inviting, and sweet. “Okay, Tony. See you.”

“See you, too.” The elevator doors close and he collapses against the corner of the car as the lift begins its rise to his penthouse apartment. “Damn it.”


	2. Chapter 2

Trying to be the better man when you’re up against Captain America involves small miracles and too much alcohol to be physically safe. He ends up throwing himself into his work and ignoring the better part of the next week. JARVIS keeps him fed, somehow or another, probably thanks to Bruce. Food appears in the workshop and he munches on it. He drinks a lot, too much, but he remains very clearly aware of what he’s lost.

He knew he was risking losing Steve, but he hadn’t counted on losing him to a threat he hadn’t known about, he hadn’t realized that Steve would be interested in some ex-SHIELD agent. He’d thought the ghost come back to life, Bucky Barnes, would be the real threat.

Bruce hangs out in the workshop, roaming around and touching things. At one point, Tony snarls at him, tells him to go back to his lab, and Bruce only stays quiet and sits down next to Tony. He’s keenly aware of how Bruce understands him, but he doesn’t say anything, just sighs melodramatically and gets on with his work.

Eventually, he decides he needs to do some research on the whole Steve and Sharon deal. He toys with calling Sam but then that’s too much of an invasion of Steve’s privacy. He opts for Natasha, and, since she lives in the Tower, he finds himself at her door, knocking.

She opens it and raises an eyebrow as she sucks on a water bottle. Wearing tights and a bodysuit, she waves him in. “Come on.” She doesn’t hesitate to lead him into her suite, where she’s decked out one of the rooms out with mirrors, rails, and a sound system. She holds onto the rail as she runs through a battery of what Tony can only call ballet moves. 

Natasha doesn’t wait for his sarcastic remark, she only says, “You’d be surprised how athletic the ballet really is.”

He considers her and says, “Not really.”

“And you need, Stark?” She continues to bend and stretch.

“I wanted to ask you about the -.” And he stops because he suddenly realizes how invasive his question is. “I wanted to- how’s the suite?”

“Great, a little weird in the heating zones, but good overall.” She stops and scoops up her water bottle. “And that’s not what you came here for.”

“No.”

“Sharon, you want to know about her,” Natasha says.

“Do you know about her?” he asks.

“A little, she’s good for Steve,” Natasha replies. “I like her, she’s nice.”

“Did you set them up?” He tries to ignore the mirrors, the reflections upon reflections of himself having a mental breakdown in front of the team spy/profiler would not be good to witness. 

“I wanted to set him up.”

“What?” Tony says and the stricken expression on his face bounces back at him like hard ball. 

She shrugs and retrieves a towel from the sidebar. “Steve seemed lonely when we were undercover at SHIELD.”

“Steve and I were still together then,” he says and hates the way each and every image of him looks more sickened than the next. It isn’t possible, but it is. 

She wipes her face and shrugs. “Yeah, I know.” 

“What the hell, Natasha.” 

“I needed to know, it’s part of the job,” she says and, though there’s a certain detachment to her words, he also detects remorse. “Anyone can be compromised, even Captain America.”

“Not Steve.”

“No,” she smiles. “Not Steve, not in the end. But there is something you should know.”

“What’s that?” he asks because even pissed at Natasha, he respects her abilities to read people.

“When we confronted Zola, when he told Steve he died for nothing, he put a fist through the computer monitor.”

“I can understand that,” Tony says.

“Maybe,” she replies and tilts her head. “But can you, can you really? Everything he believed in was taken away from him. Add that to the fact everything – his whole world – had been taken away from him as well. You get the picture, right?”

“I think?” He feels something building, rising, like a mysterious monster out of the sea. It’s dangerous and deadly, but he hasn’t a clue what it is.

“When they call Steve the man out of time, what do you think that means?” 

He shakes his head. He’s not sure where this entire conversation is going. 

“Do you think he’s out of _time_ or _out_ of time. There’s a difference,” she says. “Now I have to take a shower. Out, Stark.”

“This has been, well, extremely unhelpful. If you want to know.”

She raises an eyebrow and tilts her head. “I aim to please. Let yourself out.” She exits the room without a glance back at him. He’s left to stand in a room full of mirrors to realize he’s lost in what can only be termed a mirage of his own life. 

By the time he leaves the elevator and walks onto the penthouse floor, he’s confused, conflicted, and not a little pissed off. He passes the long curve of the bar, but ignore it for his bedroom. As he walks down the hallway, he stops at a room that is adjacent to the master suite. He had it renovated, did a lot of the modifications himself. 

He touches the door of the room, but doesn’t enter. Instead he finds his way to his bedroom and falls onto the bed. He has to come to terms with the fact he’s lost Steve. He did this to himself, in many ways. He took the chance, he never had Steve promise to wait, he never promised to wait for Steve to be ready for their relationship again. 

He lays an arm over his eyes and says, “He’s right, I never really proposed to him.”

“Sir?”

“Nothing, J-man, just thinking out loud.”

“Would you like me to get Ms. Potts on the line? I’ve noted in the past that when you speak to yourself out loud, you often follow it by calling Ms. Potts.”

Tony smiles. Leave it to his A.I. to know his habits and needs so well. “Yeah, do that.”

The call goes through but it takes a few seconds before JARVIS connects with the West Coast. Pepper must be busy; it is the middle of the day here and so she’s only just begun her day in California.

“Tony? Are we connected? Tony?”

Tony screws up his face. That’s weird. “Pepper?”

“Yes, Tony, how are you?”

“You seem too relaxed.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that?” There’s a slight tone in her voice that shows a fond exasperation.

“Oh there it is,” he says and does not explain further. “Steve’s dating.”

There’s a second’s pause but Pepper recovers. “Okay? He’s not moving to the Tower?”

“No, no,” Tony says and presses fingers into his eyes. How can he explain this to the outside world, to anyone outside of Steve? “He’s moved in, probably chowing down on more pizza, massive quantities of pizza.”

“But you know he’s dating someone?”

“Yeah, she was there,” Tony says and cringes at the memory of Sharon. “How creepy is it to be dating your former love’s niece?”

“I’m not sure why you’re asking me that?”

“Steve is dating Peggy Carter’s niece, maybe even great niece, I don’t know. But isn’t that creepy? Do you think he might have more mental issues than we thought, I thought?” He corrects the last part because he hasn’t told Pepper the circumstances surrounding his break up with Steve, not in detail. 

Pepper waits a moment before she answers. “Is she moving in too?” Her voice edges on angry.

“No, no, she’s his neighbor, was his neighbor in D.C. She used to be a SHIELD agent, now she’s working with the CIA.”

“Oh, she’s trustworthy,” Pepper sounds sarcastic. He makes a cat call at her and she laughs. Once she quiets, she asks, “Is it serious?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think so, but she was here helping him move.”

“Oh.” If there is a sound of an ax falling on his relationship with Steve – that is it. 

“That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, Tony. Even if he doesn’t think it’s serious, she’s hoping it is,” Pepper says.

Tony’s sitting with his back curled and his face covered with his hands. He doesn’t want to cry, he keeps telling himself, this was the risk he took. “I should have told him. I told him I loved him, but I’m not sure I told him I’d wait for him.”

“Tony.” The way she says his name wraps him in words of comfort she doesn’t even need to voice. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll come out there for a while? Get some of the newest tech working?”

She must be nodding, he thinks she must be because she says, “That would be good. We’ve had a few attempts to hack the systems.”

“No, that’s not possible and how could they? The systems are completely isolated from the internet.”

“Exactly.”

He frowns. This is perfect though, it presents a distraction and, while Tony knows he doesn’t need another distraction, he needs to fill his brain up with necessary instead of hoped for – and his company, the health of it, and the security of it are necessary. “I’ll come out now.”

“Come out tomorrow.”

“I need to-.”

“Deal with things,” she finishes. Without even referring to it, Pepper points him in the direction to clear up his own house before he starts messing up others. 

“Okay, but tomorrow.”

“Bright and early,” she agrees.

“Can you send me the attempts? I want the data?” he says – at least he can spend his off time trying to figure out who the hell is trying to worm their way into Stark Industries.

“I’ll have Happy contact the head of IT Security and send the data to you. Don’t stay up all night.”

“Of course not, look who you’re talking to.”

She laughs. “I know who I’m talking to, so don’t stay up all night.”

“Pep?”

“Yes, Tony?”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

He closes the line and reclines back into his pillows. He can choose to lie here and think about Steve, about the loss of what he’d hoped would become a lifetime with someone who’d burrowed deep into his heart, or he can get up and move on with his life. 

He takes a moment to cross the room and open the door to the adjoining suite. It is a special suite with luxurious appointments. There’s a beautiful bed, large and broad with an array of pillows and cushions. Close to it is the bath that is a wide open space of Jacuzzi tubs, double walk in showers with multiple shower heads. There’s even a massage table that can be pulled down from the wall for heat or traditional massages.

Further into the room, more secluded and quiet, almost reverent in its appointments is the playroom. This isn’t like any other play room Tony put together or designed. This is something lovely and comfortable. Every inch and square of it, Tony carefully considered how Steve would react. The lighting is subdued and the cool blues and soft sage hues of the linens and rugs, and mats are fashioned to allow Steve to remain in his subspace for as long as he needs. 

Of course there are instruments and toys scattered over the room but with each there’s a comfort – an attention to aftercare. In one area with a circular couch and a fireplace, there’s a rug with a stool and cushioned head rest, Tony created. It is specifically for binding with the Japanese jute rope. Steve had loved it during their time on the Islands. It would take Tony nearly an hour to tie the complex rope patterns of Kinbaku. 

Steve would be positioned, bound, and constrained. He would not be able to move or protest for hours. He’d lie near Tony, by his feet, heavily, deeply in subspace. He would stay bound as Tony pet and stroked him, as Tony read and went about the business of the day, never straying too far from his love. 

When Tony released him, Steve would moan in long low hums. They would bath and Tony would massage the aches away and then it would be time to touch and love and be together. He cannot believe how much he misses it. How much Steve had meant to him. How much he missed – the possibility that Steve had been using their relationship as a crutch, as a way to hide from the world outside burns.

He leaves the room.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Lock the inner door to the adjacent room. Do not allow me to open it unless I run the override code.” 

“Yes, sir.”

Tony doesn’t need to visit a room he’ll never use now. He doesn’t plan on looking around for anyone else who might play the role of submissive. The adjoining room, his planned playroom with Steve, will need to be dismantled. That life is over now.

“Let’s get to work,” Tony says. “JARVIS have you received any data from SI-West?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please run through it for any weak points, any access points, and any way that the application trying to worm its way through the public access to SI information can somehow get into the SI-intranet.”

“Underway, sir.”

Spending the rest of the afternoon in his workshop does nothing for his mood which has turned decidedly sour and abrasive. He even yells at Natasha when she ventures into the shop for a quick discussion on her defense weapons.

“The mask works fairly well, if I’m able to get a good pattern read but if I try with a partial, it can’t extrapolate so using it is worthless,” Natasha says as she places the facial mask netting on the bench. “Think you can tweak it a bit?”

“Oh sure, why not,” Tony says. “Just like you tweaked a bit here and there in my love life.”

“That’s uncalled for.”

“Is it? You admitted pushing him toward his neighbor,” Tony says and grabs the gold netting. It’s good tech, not the best, but he can recalibrate it and see if he can fix the quirks. 

“I also tried to set him up with a handful of other people. He never bit,” Natasha says as if that’s supposed to make Tony feel better. “I even teased him that he hadn’t kissed since 1945.”

“You knew he kissed,” Tony says.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“Well, some people in your kind of relationship don’t include romance. Kissing is intimate. I wanted to make sure,” Natasha says and her expression holds something dangerous and threatening. “Steve means a lot to me, I wanted to make sure you were doing right by him.”

“So, you weren’t really profiling him.”

She lifts a brow. “I guess I never stopped profiling you.”

“For who? Hydra?”

“That’s a low blow, even from you.” She turns on her heel and heads to the doors.

“Natasha, stop,” Tony says and rounds the bench. 

She stops but doesn’t face him.

“I love Steve, I still do,” Tony says and waits. She peers over her shoulder. “I’d do anything to get him back.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

Without explaining herself, she exits and he’s left to puzzle out what cryptic message she tried to impart. In the end he hibernates again for a few more hours until he’s hungry and needs to consider packing for his trip out to California. 

He opts to use the stairs down to the common rooms, checking to see if Bruce put together anything for dinner. When he pops his head in the kitchen he finds the whole team gathering.

“Hey, we’re calling it movie night, interested?” Clint says as he pulls out bowls for snacks.

“Movie night?” He notices Steve in the far corner scooping bowls of ice cream. The famous Sharon Carter is nowhere to be seen.

“Yeah, gotta do some team building exercises.”

“I’m not sure this counts,” Steve says and smiles as he looks up from his task. “Join us?” He looks hopeful and open. 

Tony stumbles in his brain, actually skitters as if there’s open spaces where the neurons have to leap over chasms to finish the circuitry. “I don’t – I think I should-.”

“It’s good, Stark,” Natasha says as she walks into the room. With a subtle tilt of the head to Steve, she adds, “This is a great idea.”

“Oh, I-.” He looks everywhere but at Steve. “Just the team?”

“No one else is here,” Bruce says as if the allay Tony’s unspoken fears.

“Okay, okay, good.” It isn’t good, it isn’t at all. He feels like a fifteen year old about to ask his eighteen year old crush out on a date – a situation he’d been in back in the day. He’s not fond of the idea of reliving it. “What’s the movie?”

“I picked.” Clint has a glint in his eye that’s nothing but trouble. Natasha groans at the announcement while Clint only shrugs in response. “If you want to have your choice then get here first.”

“We can set up a rotation,” Steve says as he sprays copious amounts of whipped cream on the ice cream. 

“This is not going to be a tradition,” Tony says and he’s already feeling the weight – the possibility of dates joining in – of having to plaster on a smile when Steve and Sharon cuddle up together on the couch.

“It can be,” Clint says with a wink.

“It can’t be Thor isn’t even here,” Tony points out and pours a cup of coffee even though he never intended to get one. He was just hungry.

“Thor’s excused. He’s globetrotting with Jane, and he hasn’t even moved in yet.”

Eventually Tony concedes to the probability this will not be the only time the team hangs out together, be it for movies, drinking games, or late night strategy sessions. This had been his plan all along as far as the Avengers initiative funded by the Stark family fortune. Now he wishes he’d just forgotten about his big ass ideas and kept to himself.

Once the movie starts (and it is _Raiders of the Lost Ark_. they all decide that Steve needs to watch) Steve sits in a recliner with Natasha perched on the side. The chair nearly has enough room for two people and Tony can imagine that someday, Steve will fit his cute little princess Sharon on his lap for movies. Tony should be happy that it’s Natasha hunched over him and stealing his popcorn while Steve intermittently sprays whipped cream into his mouth. He looks positively giddy and happy and Tony hates it.

He sits through half of the movie, leaving when the monkey dies. Slipping out, he goes through the kitchen and hopes everyone will think he only went to freshen up his drink. Instead he plans on disappearing via the back exit from the kitchen. His mistake of stopping for that drink dooms him.

“Tony.”

He whips around to find Steve followed him into the kitchen. “Oh.” It’s all he can manage.

“I wanted to say I’m glad you decided to watch the movie with us. I haven’t seen you around much,” Steve says.

“No, yeah, I’ve been working, working on a lot of projects. In fact, in fact you know I’m leaving tomorrow to fly out to California. I’m doing some R and D for the company,” Tony says and none of it matters but it’s the world to him, it’s his shield, his defense. It’s all that he can muster to fend off that look of sincerity from Steve.

“Oh, I didn’t know, then,” Steve says with hands shoved into his back pockets. He reminds Tony of that same fifteen year old boy who’d been trying so hard to impress an eighteen year old. Tony always had swagger, but sometimes it covered up a lot of insecurities. 

He narrows his eyes at Steve. “Yeah, I promised Pepper.”

Steve scratches at his neck and then goes to leave the kitchen, only to step back in. “Okay, damn it, I just wanted to know if you’d like to go to lunch, sometime. Not tomorrow, obviously, because you’re not going to be in town, and I have all this stuff to do getting the team together and working on strategies…”

“Lunch?” Tony says and screws up his face. He doesn’t like to be led on and Steve is the last person Tony would think would use that trick. At their last little lunch it isn’t like Steve came clean about the girl next door.

“Yes, if you want, we could, if you want,” Steve says with a shrug and his cheeks flare with a blush. He’s every bit the ninety pound weakling trapped in a two hundred pound bag of muscles.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Tony says because he doesn’t want to have to deal with listening to Steve’s love life.

“Oh, I-just-.” Steve looks back to the living room where there are hoots and hollers at the movie. 

Tony feels like he should rescue Steve, but isn’t that the main problem they had before, Tony’s need to make things perfect, to fix things for Steve. “You’re dating Sharon now, Steve.” It hurts down to his gut to say it out loud.

“Yes,” Steve says and nods. He doesn’t meet Tony’s gaze.

“What are you looking for with me?”

Steve only shakes his head and Tony catches a glimpse of his eyes, only a half glimpse and there’s a glint of pain, remorse, and regret. 

“Steve?”

He puts his hands up as if he’s surrendering. “My fault. This was my fault. I’m sorry, Tony.” 

Before he can say another word, Steve escapes. It takes long minutes of reviewing the conversation, analyzing it inside and out before Tony comes back to himself. When Tony peers into the living room, he notes that Steve hasn’t rejoined his team mates. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Where’s Steve?”

“In the gym, sir. He’s currently working out on a punching bag.”

Tony considers going to the gym, finding out if Steve’s okay, ensuring that he’s not beating the crap out of his hands because of Tony’s refusal. He decides against it; they both need to learn how to live and work together but not _be_ together. 

“JARVIS?” Tony says as he pours the second cup of coffee.

“I will monitor Captain Rogers and ensure his safety, sir?”

“When did I program you to mind read?” Tony sighs and sips the coffee. It’s too bitter and too cold. He sets it aside and finds his way back to his penthouse. While JARVIS monitors Steve, Tony throws himself on his large California king bed and stares up into the dark. It will be good to get out of Dodge, he needs to rescue himself, but his mind keeps cycling down to the fact Steve wanted to see him, talk to him, to be with him. 

Yet, Tony can’t do that to himself, cannot take Steve at any level. The fact remains even if Steve offers friendship, Tony cannot accept it. He wants nothing less than love, he wants nothing less than all of Steve.

“And that’s a problem,” Tony whispers into the abyss.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony spends the next month in California. He knows and Pepper knows he’s using it as his escape hideaway but she is kind and caring like she always has been when dealing with his issues. There’s not a little part of him that doesn’t feel guilty that his friends have to spend so much time piecing him back together again. 

He thinks he has to man up and change how he does things. It’s Tony Stark against the world; he’s a loner though he always has people around him. It’s a paradox that aches like an open wound in his heart all the time. 

Without an anchor in California, he rents a penthouse of an exclusive hotel in Malibu. From his perch he can see the ocean but it only serves to remind him of his lost house and the lost promises. Pepper understands more than he gives her credit for and she finds him one morning, in his dad’s smoking jacket, staring out at the ocean, with a glass of orange juice in his hand. She walks up to him, silently plucks the glass out of his grasp, tastes it and detects the vodka, which has never been his favorite, and then sets it aside. She never chastises him only steers him from the balcony and into the main room of the penthouse.

“I ordered room service. They’ll be here in about thirty minutes. Go take a shower, you need to come into the office today.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You need to for your own sanity, and for mine. I need someone to take a look at the operating systems. Our IT people are pulling out their hair.”

“I’m not sure we should be paying them if they’re causing you trouble,” he says, fondly. 

She only smiles at him. “Then what should I do about you?”

He laughs and pops a finger at her nose. She bats him away and he leaves to follow orders. 

She calls after him. “You could stay with me, you know. I have JARVIS.”

He doesn’t answer, because if he accepts they will both fall into that trap. Showering, he allows the water to beat down on him as his thoughts converge on Steve, on what he shouldn’t be considering. He needs to move past the idea of having Steve in any capacity. That road only leads to ruin. He does wonder if he could be friends one day with Steve. 

Once he finishes cleaning up, shaving, and dressing, he stands in the bedroom of the suite and misses JARVIS. He digs through the bureau and finds the tablet.

“JARVIS.”

“It is good to speak with you again, sir.”

“Can you?” He grimaces as he closes his eyes. He knows he shouldn’t, but they left things so raw, he needs to find out if everything will be all right. “Can you tell me what Steve has been up to lately?”

“Captain Rogers has spent most of his time in the gym or working on team strategies. He has tried to contact you numerous times, but has never hit the connect button on his phone. I queried if he was having trouble with the technology and he categorically said no.”

“Is he at the Tower now?”

“Yes, sir.”

He shouldn’t ask, he does anyhow. “What’s he doing?”

“Captain Rogers is currently working with Thor and Ms. Romanoff on strategies. He is showing some frustration and may need a break. Would you like me to patch you through?” 

JARVIS waits as Tony considers the offer. He should say no. His answer, his response is logical and rational and he hates it. He almost places the tablet on the bed, but stops and sits on the edge. “Yeah, do that.”

It takes a few seconds during which Tony swings wildly back and forth between cutting the connection and anticipating the look on Steve’s face. What looms in the back of his brain is that Steve has a girlfriend and Tony should have inquired about whether or not Steve has had Cutie Pants over lately before dashing down this hazardous road.

“Tony?” Steve’s face appears on the screen of the tablet. From the looks of it, Steve has taken the call in private. He has that little furrow between his brows, showing he’s either confused or irritated or both. When Tony turns to him, Steve smiles and the furrow instantly disappears. “Hey.”

“Hey, Steve,” Tony says and suddenly doesn’t know what to say. He shouldn’t be calling. This isn’t his place anymore. So he does a back step retreat as fast as he can. “I was just checking in and seeing if there’s any issues with the team and the Tower.”

“Oh, hmm, yeah,” Steve says and while his smile doesn’t fade, he looks more distracted, less engaged. “We’re working on the team strategies and would like to start a full schedule work out.” He stops, glances to the side of the screen and camera and then turns back. “Do you know if you’ll be back soon?”

“Back?” Tony nearly swallows his tongue.

“Yeah, yeah, we need to, we need to start the practice routines. If we have to battle something or someone on the fly it would go more smoothly if we had some strategies, and tactical figured out,” Steve says and his voice echoes that of Captain America.

Tony frowns, he should have expected it. “Soon. You should consider practicing without me. I might not be there all the time.”

Steve nods and there’s a hesitation in it. “Are you having fun?”

“Fun?”

“Yeah, are you having fun? Back in the old stomping grounds?” 

Tony tries to hold his temper but it flares up and he snaps, “Yeah, I’m out fucking everything walking around on two legs.”

“Tony I-.”

“Just like the rest, aren’t you Rogers?”

“Oh, we’re at last names now?” Steve says and the smile is a distant memory.

“I didn’t think the prude would approve-.”

“Prude?”

“Oh, forgive me. Captain America’s tastes aren’t exactly in line with prude, are they?”

The stricken expression that crosses Steve’s face slices through Tony like a hot knife through butter. He knows he’s shot right for the heart and the aim was true and the target destroyed. 

“Steve, I-.”

“No, thank you, Mister Stark. I have to go,” Steve says and cuts the line.

“Tony, what was that all about?” Pepper stands at the entrance to the bedroom of the suite.

His hands shake and he places the tablet on the bed before he drops it. “I shouldn’t have. I – damn it. I shouldn’t have said that to him.”

Pepper sits on the bed next to him; her lithe form barely shifting the mattress and duvet. She wraps an arm around him and draws him to her. He lies his head on her shoulder. “We always hurt the ones we love the most.”

He has no words to offer her since he broke up with her to be with Steve; he’d done it because he’d thought he’d live the rest of his life with Steve. Now, he can barely move through the day. 

“You need some project to get your mind busy; it’s the only way out of the fog for you.” She runs hands through the thick mess of his hair. “Come on and eat and then we’ll go into the office.”

“Okay.”

He eats but it is mechanical and he cannot help but torture himself over the way he treated Steve on the phone. To know from JARVIS that Steve had made attempts, or close calls to contact Tony, only not to do it, and then to have broken Steve’s trust by using their lifestyle as a weapon against him – it ruins whatever appetite Tony might have been able to muster. Pepper seems to understand and allows him his failings as far as eating a decent meal.

When they get to Stark Industries, it’s a mad house as it always is when he arrives. He feels like royalty, like a king when he enters. Everyone kowtows to him and it turns his stomach in some ways. He’s beyond the need for this kind of validation. Pepper shoos them away and he ends up in an empty board room and Pepper calling down to IT. A young woman with violent red hair pops on the screen.

“Yep, Ms. Potts? Oh, hmm, didn’t realize you had company? Mister Stark?” She seems surprised but not overly impressed with his presence. He wonders if Pepper coached her before the call. 

“Erica, yes, I’m here with Mister Stark and he would like to go over some of the issues you’ve been dealing with as far as the interface and security connectivity?”

The girl on the other end of the connection smiles and she says, “Sure thing?” She’s wearing a t-shirt with a glowing arc reactor plastered in the middle of it. He doesn’t know if he should take it as a compliment or be horrified by it. “You want I come up?”

“I could go down, might be easier?” Tony says and sits up in his chair.

“Great, that’s settled. Mister Stark will be down to discuss the situation momentarily. Thanks, Erica.”

The connection ends and Pepper turns to face him. “Are you okay with this?”

“What, cute young thing wants to see what poppa can teach her?”

“Ew, Tony, stop, you are not-.”

He holds up his hands in surrender. “Not even close. Just teasing you. I love it when you get all red in the face.”

“That’s not nice, Tony.”

“You know it is,” Tony says and it’s comfortable to talk with her. It’s always been, and, for a moment he regrets letting her go, but he knows it was the best thing for both of them. “And where can I find – what’s her name again?”

“Erica Holstein, she’s down in IT. Specifically, the Innovation Center.”

“We have an Innovation Center, I thought I was the Innovation Center,” Tony says as she starts to scoot him out of the board room. “And when did we start hiring punkers.”

“No one says punkers anymore, Tony. And she’s one of the wiz kids down there, so be good.” She gets him in the elevator and JARVIS (West) brings him to the appointed floor.

He follows the directions because hell, if he hasn’t been here in ages. When he opens the door, he knows the wiz kid is after his heart. The place rocks with loud guitar riffs by the man himself, Jimmy Hendrix. When she spots him from across the laboratory with its mess of computer parts, circuits, and wires, she cuts off the music and puts her googles on top of her head – pushing back that impossibly red magenta hair. 

“Mister Stark, good to see you. Maybe you can figure out what’s been going on with our internal A.I.” The music automatically lowers.

“You mean JARVIS-west is acting up? How unlike you JARVIS?”

“Sir, I prefer to think of it as a growth spurt.”

“You’re too old for a growth spurt.” Tony steps over the coil of cables on the tiled floor to join the young woman at her work station. No one else is in the lab. “You work here alone?”

“Most of the time, the boys, well, let’s just say they learned early I need my space.” She winks at him and continues, “So Ms. Potts said you’re some kind of genius.”

Tony gags a little. “Some kind?”

“Well, all kinds of genius. So can you help figure out what the hell’s going on with the glitch in the system.”

“Ms. Holstein, I do not glitch.”

“Whatever you say, J-west.”

“J-west?” Tony says as he retrieves the files and throws his hands wide to project the holo-data set. Maybe the A.I. needs an upgrade; he hasn’t been around in ages to do it.

“Well, it’s not like he’s the real JARVIS now is he?” Erica says with a slightly raised brow and a challenge in her eye.

How does she know about the different JARVISes. JARVIS works in concentric circles, with the JARVIS he interacts with encompassing all of the JARVISes so that there is some autonomy but also integration. “Hmm, not really.”

She knocks him with her hip, which is totally on the level of not appropriate and years ago that thought would never appear in his brain. He’s getting old and not fun. 

“Don’t worry I won’t spoil the secret for everyone,” she says. “I kind of figured it out.”

“You did?”

“Not too hard to do, everyone knows you got an A.I. over in the big apple. And there’s one controlling your suit. Plus I can’t access any of those, no matter how hard I try.”

She can’t access them because each of them are higher forms the farther out you go. It’s similar to trying to open a file created in the latest and greatest version of the program with a much older version. Doesn’t work. He jerks in response to that. “You try?”

“Of course, who wouldn’t?”

“They’re on separate networks, completely isolated from one another.” None of that is true, but she doesn’t need to know it. Most people don’t know it.

“Not completely, they have to communicate with one another, now don’t they?” The playful spirit in the glint of her eyes would have fooled him if she didn’t smile the way she did. She might feign innocence and youth, but there is something about her that doesn’t sit right with Tony. 

“How old are you?”

“Old enough to know better,” she says and sidles up to him, her breasts pushed up against where his arc reactor once whirred. She’s tall, muscular, and amazingly beautiful. In his youth he might have tried to woo her and bed her, but something stops him now. Something more than the idea of betraying his love for Steve. 

“You say that now,” he teases because he needs to find out what her endgame is. He has no doubt she has an endgame. 

“You’re cheeky, I like that,” she says and moves away from him into the glittering array of holo-data swirling around them. “Do you want to play in my field, Mister Stark?”

“Not exactly yours,” Tony says.

“Oh,” she smiles and says, “You say that now.” She pulls data forward and shows him where the data is corrupted. “See not good and it keeps happening after I fix it.”

He might get whiplash from her change in subjects. “What’s the trigger?” 

“For the data corruption? Can’t figure it out, but it happens on a routine basis. Shouldn’t since, as you say, it is a closed system.”

“Get me all of the data, and download it via the Stark secure net and I’ll review it tonight.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” she replies and then adds, “We could go over it together. Might be nice to lay back, relax, listen to some good rock, get a little high. I got a good stash.”

He’s walking in mine field territory. He could accept her invitation. Some part of him wants to just jump in with both feet, regardless of the depth. But the alarm bells in his head keep him from saying yes – right away. “Maybe some other time.”

“I’ll count on it,” she says and her smile wants to devour him.

“You do that,” he says and escapes. 

Later in the evening he has the data spilling out over his tablet and he’s following the data log of all of the glitches that appear and then are fixed only to reappear again a few days later. At first the glitches, the corrupted steams of data are in the software that’s not vital, but slowly and most insidiously it worms its way into more critical systems. Most of the employees don’t know the backdoor that JARVIS west uses to communicate with the other counterparts. Only Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, and himself actually know how the communication works. Not even Steve with his access to JARVIS knows it. Tony worries it could be another arm of Hydra and that SHIELD is not as dead as they’d hoped.

He rings up Pepper who happens to be having a nice quiet dinner with Happy. Pepper puts him on the screen. “Sorry, Happy.”

“No problem, boss.” He gets up from the table and leaves the room with plates in hand.

“What is it?” Pepper says and she’s not irritated only interested.

“How much do we know about this Holstein person?”

“She cleared all security checks,” Pepper says. “Why?”

“She’s been trying to get into the JARVIS center on the East Coast.”

“Wow, really? Should I let her go-.”

“No,” he says. “I need to keep her as close as possible.” Which would be one way to start digging deeper into what she’s doing. “But I need to know where you found her.”

“We didn’t find her, she found us. Her C.V. and recommendations were outstanding and she sent us a program out of the blue to help with the problems with the StarkPhone 3.0.”

“Really? That’s where that solution came from? She hacked my operating system?”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “No one says hacked anymore. But yes, she did.”

“Wow, she’s good.”

“That’s what I thought,” Pepper says. “I hired her on the spot. Her main function is to try and use malicious ware or viruses to break whatever systems we have out there. It’s a way to ensure that we’ve found all the holes and issues.”

“Find out more about her, will you?”

“I’ll see what I can find through conventional means but, Tony-.”

“I’ll see what I can pull up with unconventional means. I’ll need to go back to New York, I need to be able to get into JARVIS there and see what I can do.”

“But you’ll look at our problem here?”

“Absolutely, count on it, Pep,” Tony says and they say their goodbyes before he closes the connection. 

Back to New York after nearly a month away, after insulting and humiliating Steve on the phone this afternoon. He wants to apologize and thinks he should at least make an effort in that regard.

He taps out the commands on his tablet, the data stream disappears, and JARVIS answers, “Yes sir?”

“Can you tell me what Steve’s doing now?”

“It is currently one o’clock in the morning on the East Coast, sir. Captain Rogers is in bed.”

“Is he sleeping?” Tony says almost without thinking.

“No, he is not.”

Tony swallows back his fear and asks, his voice small and rasping, “Is someone with him?” He hates asking but he has to know.

“Captain Rogers is alone, sir.”

He releases a breath and closes his eyes; hands fisted to his face. He allows the fear to roll off of him and he relaxes. Before he thinks about it, he asks, “Ring him up?”

“May I remind you, sir that your last telephone call with Captain Rogers did not go exceedingly well?”

“No, you may not,” Tony says and then backtracks. “Can you give me a recording of it?”

“While I do not have all of the capabilities in this format, I can give you a recording of the call, sir,” JARVIS says. “Sir, the recording from your phone call with Captain Rogers is ready for you to review.”

“Please, do.” There is only audio. 

_“Tony? Hey.”_

“JARVIS, can you call up the video stream as well?”

“It may take a moment, sir, since the data is stored not on the tablet but on my server-.”

He’s too impatient to wait; he wants to know how much damage he’s done to his already fragile relationship with Steve. “No, forget it, proceed.”

_“Hey, Steve, I was just checking in and seeing if there’s any issues with the team and the Tower.”_

_“Oh, hmm, yeah. We’re working on the team strategies and would like to start a full schedule work out.” There’s a pause in the recording and then Steve’s voice is softer, quieter. “Do you know if you’ll be back soon?”_

_“Back?”_

_“Yeah, yeah, we need to, we need to start the practice routines. If we have to battle something or someone on the fly it would go more smoothly if we had some strategies, and tactical figured out.”_

_“Soon. You should consider practicing without me. I might not be there all the time.”_

Tony thinks his voice sounds cold, harsher than he intended.

_“Are you having fun?”_

_“Fun?”_

_“Yeah, are you having fun? Back in the old stomping grounds?”_

_“Yeah, I’m out fucking everything walking around on two legs.”_

_“Tony I-.”_

_“Just like the rest, aren’t you Rogers?”_

_“Oh we’re at last names now?” Steve’s voice is exasperated, and pained._

_“I didn’t think the prude would approve-.”_

_“Prude?”_

_“Oh, forgive me. Captain America’s tastes aren’t exactly in line with prude, are they?”_

It hurts to even listen to his words to Steve. What the hell is wrong with him? Why would he do that to someone he loves.

_“Steve, I-.”_

_“No, thank you, Mister Stark. I have to go.”_

“Way to go, Stark,” Tony says and drops the tablet on the bed. “God damn it.” He has no excuse for lashing out at Steve. Yes, he’s angry, and yes, Steve should have been more forthcoming when it came to Bucky, Sharon, and dating. But hurting Steve – that’s unforgivable. “JARVIS, forget it. Don’t put the call through.”

“Sir, may I suggest you reconsider?”

“Why is that?” Tony hunches over on the bed and scrubs at his hair. 

“I believe that Captain Rogers is in some distress. He has not slept well in many nights and has taken to getting up at 2 am to go running.”

“Huh,” Tony says and considers whether or not he should chance a phone call. Steve might not be receptive to any communications from Tony. Yet, when Tony talked with Steve earlier he hadn’t indicated any problems, though Tony hadn’t truly given him the opportunity. Tony had been spoiling for a fight. “Okay, I’ll call, but I’m going to do it on my cell.”

“As you wish.”

He digs out his smartphone and connects to Steve’s phone. It takes a bit longer than Tony thinks it should, but he doesn’t remark on it when Steve only says, “Captain Rogers.” He knows that Steve would recognize his phone number.

“Steve.” Every word or consideration dries up in Tony’s mouth and he suddenly feels like he’s chewing on sand particles. 

“What can I do for you?” His voice is distant, but not exactly cold, more resigned than malicious. 

“I wanted-.” Tony stops because the next words out of his mouth happened to be the most important ones he’s ever uttered to Steve. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry about what I said. I was wrong and I have no excuse.”

There’s no immediate response and Tony thinks he’s blown it with the trite, ridiculous whine he just offered up to Steve. Within the depth of the silence, Steve breathes and Tony listens to the rhythmic variation of it.

“Okay,” Steve says and there’s a small lilt to the word as if it might be a question.

“I know you don’t want to hear from me, that I’ve burned my bridges,” he huffs a little in scathing self-mocking. “Kind of my thing, you know, burning bridges to places I need to be, people I love.”

“Love,” Steve replies and the word lingers in the air like a wisp of heat from a street vent on a cold winter’s day.

“Also, yeah, also, I know I don’t have any right to say this, or even think it but I need to know what’s going on in your head. I really have to-.”

“I asked you if you were having fun, because I wanted to know that you were okay, that you were happy,” Steve says as if he has something to apologize for in this latest debacle.

Tony squeezes his free hand into a fist and frowns. “Yeah, I kind of guessed that after, afterward. And I was defensive and a prick. I shouldn’t have jumped on you.”

“Still.”

“Yeah, I did. But I want you to know, I realize what I did wrong-.”

“So do I.”

“What?” Tony bites back his words, the quick tongue with the acidic response.

“I mean,” Steve exhales. “I mean I realize what I did wrong, at the cabin. And I should have been clear about it. You kept asking me about Bucky then and I didn’t, couldn’t answer you.” He stops abruptly and there’s a slight strangulated sound.

“Steve?”

“It’s because I didn’t know, Tony. Everything that had happened with Bucky was too close to the surface.”

Tony understands that, Tony’s acted out when things have gone wrong, haywire and ended up with a house in the ocean for it. Weighing the two, though, Tony’s not sure that this blow up isn’t worse than a maniac firing missiles at his house. He can only force out a muttered, “Okay.”

Steve sighs and it is pitched in a way that telegraphs to Tony all the pain behind it. 

“We’re a couple of idiots, aren’t we?” Tony finally says.

“Yeah, yeah, I think we are,” Steve says and there’s a hint of ease in his voice as if Tony’s small joke released some of the tension winding him tight. 

“Can we,” Tony starts, but hates to ask. “Can we, at least, be friends?” He promised not to do this, he promised not to settle for anything less, he vowed to himself not to allow the idea of just being friends to enter his mind.

“Friends?” Steve says and Tony can hear the hesitation. What if Steve doesn’t even want that? It would break Tony.

“Yeah, I would-.” Tony almost says for the good of the team but swallows the words as Steve speaks over him.

“I’d like that, at least.”

 _At least_. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to interpret that tag on the answer. He needs to have Pepper on all of his calls that involve emotions, because damned if he cannot figure out what people are freaking talking about half the time. He hasn’t a clue if he should quiz Steve on the meaning, if there’s a feeling of burden behind it, if there’s promise to it.

It’s his turn to speak and his tongue sticks in his mouth. He manages to spit out, “Buddies, we could be buddies.” He cringes; it sounds hackneyed and stupid.

“I could use a buddy, that would be nice,” Steve says and, though the words are insanely moronic, they seem to drive home something for Steve. “That would be nice.”

“Sure it would,” Tony says and he feels nothing of it. Because the truth remains, Tony only wants to be Steve’s lover, his confidant, his husband. He has to settle for the superficial wrappings of friend. “Maybe we could hang, you know, go out to lunch when I get back.” That even sounds worse, it sounds horrendous. He’d already dismissed Steve’s peace offerings of a lunch, now he’s stooping to that tactic?

“You are coming back then?” Hope, clear and present and abiding.

“Yes,” he says it too fast for even his own brain to catch up with him. He needs to think things out, to consider and calculate. What is best for him and what is best for Steve? He adds, “Eventually.”

“Oh.” 

“Lots to do here,” he rushes in with an explanation. “Looks like some freaking ass stuff is happening with the A.I. here.”

“There’s something wrong with JARVIS?”

“Not JARVIS there, but here. There are different JARVISes but not.”

“I hear you talking but all I’m hearing is Wah wah wah,” Steve says and his voice is light, airy, friendly.

Tony laughs. “Don’t start, Mister Runs on Some kind of Electricity.”

Steve joins with him in laughter. Tony thinks it might be the sweetest sound he’s ever heard.


	4. Chapter 4

Three days later Tony is hanging on the phone while he flicks through code in little Ms Pink-red hair’s laboratory. She’d disappeared some time ago, and Tony can only guess that she left for maybe a happy meal, or some shit. It’s somewhat disturbing that he’s not attracted to her in anyway, that he thinks of her as a child and not a possible acquisition. Maybe he’s grown…but that’s not a word in his vocabulary.

“But I liked that move, I think it works for us. What do you think, Tony?”

“Hmm?” He cannot believe he drifted while talking to Steve. But it’s felt so normal, so perfect, and so familiar it is hard not to feel like himself, not to enjoy the moment. 

“Tony, are you even listening to us?” Steve says and Tony frowns. It isn’t like he’s only talking with Steve. It’s a conference call with the rest of the team. They’re setting up plays and strategies for different scenarios.

“Too busy playing with your toys, Stark?” Clint pops in on the screen and Tony wipes his face away and positions the angle to get a shot of Steve, who’s currently playing with a simulation displaying the different members of the team against some weird green blob thing.

“My question is who decided we were fighting the big green booger?” Tony says and points to the large gel-like thing. 

“Man of Iron, the big green booger is from the far reaches of the Nine Realms,” Thor says. He’s off to the side, not looking like the god of thunder at all. He’s wearing a hoodie of all things that has a pink hello kitty emblem on it. He thinks it’s probably a product of Jane’s intern, Darcy, and her oddly engaging sense of humor. 

Tony shrugs. “Still looks like it’s the goo from some toddler’s nose.”

Thor opens his mouth as if to debate it, when Steve brings up an animation simulating a move he and Steve used on the fly against the Chitauri. “I think we could use it to get to assailants in hard to reach places, a horde or swarm, or even possibly amplify the repulsor blast. Is that possible, Tony?” Steve says as the display shows Iron Man blasting Captain America’s shield over and again. 

Instead of concentrating on the problem, he analyzes how Steve interacts with him. How he’s absorbed with the work but at the same time attentive and focused mainly on Tony. Is it a sign? Should he be hopeful? 

“Need to cut that out,” Tony mutters.

“Cut it out? You don’t like the move?” Steve screws up his face as he runs through the move several times at double speed on the holographic display. “Is it a problem with the suit? Or the shield?”

“No, no,” Tony says and scratches at his forehead. Damn it. “I was thinking of you know, burgers. I miss burgers.”

“Burgers?” Steve looks genuinely confused. 

“Yeah, Pepper told me I can’t eat burgers because of some weird ass guru that told her red meat will make me stupid or something,” he says and wow, what happened to his ability to lie?

“Seriously man, you got to get your mind in the game,” Clint says and appears on the screen again, blocking Tony’s view of Steve, who happens to be covering his mouth, chuckling. 

“Are you laughing at me? You shouldn’t laugh at a man being henpecked. Just wait until it happens to you-.” He stops, realizing what he said.

Steve gulps back his laughter and his face turns a bright red color, but his eyes are wide like someone froze his eyelids open. 

“Oh stop, for god’s sake, no one would ever henpeck Captain America,” Natasha says, and her jump and save eases the tension on the call. “He’s Captain America, he does the henpecking, isn’t that right, Rogers?”

“What is this pecking with hens? Is it a game? A contest? I would like to know, perhaps my fair Jane would like to engage in this activity.”

Clint raises his eyebrow and shakes his head. “This is what we have to save the world. We’re doomed.”

From the back near the lab bench, Bruce mumbles, “Took you this long to figure that one out?”

Natasha nearly goes beet red as she laughs at Bruce’s remark. “Oh we are screwed.”

By this point in the conversation it’s clear the work for the day is done and, after a few more barbs, Steve calls it a day. “Thanks for calling in Tony, we appreciate it.”

“We or you,” he says with a wink and hisses inwardly. Poking at Steve is so natural, he needs to stop.

“Please,” Clint says. “Enough with the flirting.”

“No one’s flirting, Clint,” Tony says and goes to shut the line.

“No?” Steve says and closes the connection before Tony can say anything else. He sits there and stares at the black screen in front of him and then decides he only has one recourse. He plugs in another number, but on his smartphone this time.

“Wilson, what can I do ya for?”

“How’s Steve?”

“Again, Stark, don’t you know how to say hello?” Sam says.

“You didn’t say hello, why should I?” Tony returns and taps the desk. He wants to get this done before teeny bopper comes back.

“Okay, what’s up?”

“I want to know what’s going on with Steve.”

“Didn’t you veto your access to that information when you stopped dating him,” Sam says.

“He flirted with me today, I want to know what’s going on. I thought he was dating Sharon.”

Sam pauses before he answers, “As far as I know he still is. But, you know, she’s not around all the time. You- damn don’t think I should tell you this-.”

“Tell me.”

“Confidential.”

“You’re not his therapist.” Tony counters.

“No, I’m his friend, so confidential still means something. In fact, it means something more.”

“Well, give me a hint?”

“Let me say this, then I’m getting off the line with you. Steve cares deeply for you, man. I’ve never seen someone so head over heels. He nearly died for Bucky, I just wonder what he would do for you.”

“But-.” They broke up; they’re just friends, buddies now, or at least trying to be. Tony wants to scream – “he’s dating someone else.”

“Doesn’t matter. The Steve I know, he’s like a dog with a bone. He hangs on for good or bad. He’ll go down with the ship for that bone.” 

“What does that mean? We’re not together,” Tony says.

Sam releases a tense breath over the phone. “Listen, man, I don’t know him like you do. You tell me?”

“He’s conflicted,” Tony says.

“And I’ve seen Steve conflicted before, and it turned out with him in the Potomac and bullet holes in him,” Sam says, and then he quiets. “He still loves you.”

“Then why Sharon?” Tony says and realizes it’s probably the first time he’s used her name.

“Defense? From what I understand, from all the stories, Steve never backed down from a fight even when he was a ninety pound weakling.”

“His defense against me?”

“Maybe, maybe himself. Maybe it’s something else?”

“Okay, I gotta think about this.”

Sam says, “You do that. And, Stark, he’s trying to figure it out. You might still come out on the top if you give him room. He’d do more for you than anyone else.”

Tony only nods, even knowing Sam cannot see him. “Thanks.

The call ends and Tony’s left with more questions than answers.

A week later Tony is on his private jet heading back to the East Coast with Erica. After going over the data and reviewing all the corrupted files, Tony had convinced Pepper that there was more than a little issue with Erica and her ability to dig into every single code and blur the lines between good employee and naughty employee. 

When he came to pick her up for the trip back East, Erica had stood with her backpack on and cracking gum like she’d just graduated high school. “You know, I realize what you’re doing.”

“Sure you do,” Tony had said and waited as she followed him to his car. She threw up her hands and trudged after him to the underground garage. “Exactly what do you think I’m doing?”

He had waved her into the car, and she slid in with a wink and another crack of her gum. As he got into the car, she kissed the air and said, “Oh I don’t think we need to draw a diagram.”

She attacks him in the plane. Not attacked, attacked, but it is embarrassing for both of them and Tony, for a moment, thinks it might be a good idea to play along. A fast one with a hot chick might be exactly what he needed. But her kisses mean nothing and her hands do nothing until he excuses himself to the bathroom. He ends up locking himself in the bedroom suite on the plane. 

For all of her youth, Erica doesn’t mention his disappearance when they finally land in New York at JFK. She seems more perturbed by the fact that she forgot her phone. How she managed that in this day and age is beyond Tony, but he immediately issues her a StarkPhone, one that’s currently being beta tested. It would be good to have someone with her abilities testing the phone. 

He’s not sure but she might snicker when he gives it to her a day later in the offices in the Tower. “Are you settling in?” he asks as he sizes her up.

She looks perfectly in place, in her natural environment in the large laboratories in the Tower. She’s not in his laboratory, but he installed her in one of the state of the art Stark Industries’ research and development laboratories in the Tower. With her ensconced in the Tower lab, Tony can call on JARVIS to observe her and get intel that way. 

“It’s nice, great view, but I don’t particularly like the weather.”

“It’s Spring time in New York.” Tony retorts.

“Oh yes,” she says and looks at him from the corner of her eyes. Her makeup is impeccable, her flaming red magenta hair is up in a ponytail. She has purple and black nails. “I hear Spring Time in New York is very romantic.”

He swallows as she presses nearer, obviously bent on finishing what they started on the plane. “I think that’s Paris.”

She skips away and spins on her heels to say, “Oh, is it now?”

He’s saved from the ever increasing embarrassment of the attack of the teeny bopper when the door to the laboratory opens and none other than Steve walks in. Tony stops stone cold as if he’s been caught red handed.

Magenta hair girl smiles broadly at him and greets with a little girl finger wave that is completely out of character. “Hi.” Her voice is perky and Tony thinks he made a mistake bringing her across the country.

“Hey, did you see, Tony,” Steve says as he spots Tony behind a large array of computer screens. “I didn’t see you there. I heard you were back in town.”

For once in his life, Tony is happy he doesn’t have a hard on. He steps out of the maze of computer screens and nods to Erica. “Just showing the new girl the laboratory.”

“Tony,” Steve says and crosses the distance to offer his hand to Erica. “From what I’m told you don’t call a woman, a girl, these days.”

“No, no you don’t.” As she takes his hand, Erica peers up at him with some godlike adoration. It cools Tony’s heart. She looks over her shoulder at Tony in some half attentive glance and says, “Introductions would be nice.”

“Don’t get all hot and bothered he’s taken,” Tony returns to which Steve flushes bright red and cannot meet Tony’s gaze. He backpedals immediately. “By a girl, he has a girl. Name’s Sharon, Sharon Carter.”

Steve frowns and looks away.

“Oh, but I don’t see a ring, I call fair game,” Erica says and flutters her long, probably fake, eyelashes at Steve. 

“Miss, I’m Steve Rogers,” Steve says and shakes her hand.

She clasps his hand with both of hers. “Oh, and I’m Erica Holstein. You’re Captain America. You don’t need an introduction.” Her eyes are positively dreamy and Tony doesn’t know which one of the two he’s more jealous of or pissed at. It’s confusing as all get out. 

“Thank you, Ms. Holstein.”

“Oh, you can call me Erica, anytime.” She wrinkles up her nose as if she’s trying for Miss American Pie or something, but it really doesn’t come off very well with the reddish pink hair or the bright red lipstick. 

“Thank you, I-.” Steve’s trying to pull away and Tony thinks he should swoop in and attempt a rescue, but then Erica starts again.

“My father is a big fan.”

“Oh, thank you, that’s nice,” Steve says. 

“He’s followed your work from the very beginning.”

“From the beginning?” Tony asks and furrows his brows. What is that supposed to mean? How old is her father?

“Oh, I mean, he’s followed everything, read up on all the beginnings of Project Rebirth. Everything you did in Germany against the scientific genius, Johann Schmidt.”

“Scientific genius isn’t a term I would use for the Red Skull, miss,” Steve says and he silently queries Tony. 

“Words like lunatic and insane come to mind,” Tony supplies as he watches her. Her eyes positively glow as they scrutinize Steve. Alarm bells, stupid annoying alarm bells in his head, blast Tony and he needs to quiet them. He’s not that crazy that he cannot allow random people to look at Steve. He’s not _that_ crazy, ex-lover. 

She tilts her head and says, “Some people might call you that, you know, Mister Stark.”

He’s taken aback at her gibe but Steve draws his attention away. “Now, Ms. Holstein, I think we can all agree Mister Stark’s work to make the world a more peaceful, safer place is quite different than what the Red Skull did in his day.”

She plays with her hair. Tony can’t tell if it’s supposed to be sweet and coy or devilishly telling. “Oh in his day, I can appreciate that.” Steve opens his mouth to reply but she jumps back in. “I’m gonna need your autograph.”

“Oh, sure?” Steve says and quirks a brow at Tony. Tony only shrugs. At least her weird behavior helped to put the two of them on the same ground, on the same side of the equation for the first time in forever. He should be grateful to her. 

Steve’s scrawling his signature on her backpack with a sharpie when Tony asks, “You were here for something?”

He tosses the pen down and smiles at Erica. “Yes, I wanted to know if you would like to go and get a burger or something. Happy told me you always like to get a burger when you get back in town.” He stops and rolls his eyes. “But I forgot, Pepper doesn’t want you eating burg-.”

Tony jumps in immediately. “Okay, that sounds great. Are you good here, Erica?”

She looks up from the console and nods and then pops in some earbuds to start rocking as she’s working. 

“Okay then,” Tony says and ushers Steve out of the laboratory. Once they get into the lift, Tony says, “JARVIS, keep an eye on our guest. I’m having some second thoughts about her.”

“As you say, sir.”

The lift begins to drop as they ride down to the ground floor. “So, what’s this about?”

Steve flinches a little which is a surprise, but not entirely unexpected. “JARVIS, could you go back up to my floor, please?”

The car halts and begins to rise. “I thought we were going for a burger.”

“Sorry, no, I have some things I want to discuss with you that I don’t think a public forum would be a good place to do it.” 

Tony accepts this explanation, because he doesn’t know what else to do. Plus he’s captured in an elevator with his former boyfriend, he doesn’t have a real choice unless he commands the car stop. 

Once they get to the floor, Steve welcomes him into his apartment. There’s nothing fancy about it, but it’s well-appointed with nice furniture in manly browns and blacks. For the first time, Tony notices what Steve’s wearing. A simple t-shirt with a hoodie, not zipped, and jeans. He can see the necklace is still a popular item from the chain peeking out from underneath Steve’s collar. 

Neither of them sit and Steve looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Eventually, he says, “You want something to eat or drink.”

“No, well, that burger would have been nice.”

“I could order in?” 

“No,” Tony says. “What’s this all about?”

Steve paces a few steps and then relents to put his hands on his impossibly small hips. “A few things. Some Avenger things, but mainly I realized something before-.”

“Before what?”

“I realized that what we said, what we did wasn’t exactly straightforward.”

“I’m not sure I’m even following you now,” Tony says and drops down into a chair. It’s surprisingly comfortable. 

“Okay, let’s put it this way I have an eidetic memory.” 

“Yeah, I think that was in dad’s files. Is there something wrong? Are you having like an old man moment or something? Those seventy years catching up-.”

“Tony, stop. No,” Steve says. “I remember exactly what happened at the cabin.”

“And?” He hates this, absolutely hates this. It’s like being in grammar school, sent to the principal’s office because of that little thing he did to blow the intercom system when he was in 3rd grade. 

“I don’t remember breaking up.” He spits it out in one stream of words that really sound like Idontremberbrekinup. 

“Oh,” Tony says and the tension drains from his shoulders, from his neck where he didn’t realize he was holding it. “Oh.”

“Did we? Did we actually break up?”

Tony opens his mouth and finds he cannot answer. Not that he doesn’t know the answer, but that he cannot answer. He knows precisely what happened, he recalls it with sharp and utterly painful clarity. 

“We didn’t, did we? Not really,” Steve says. He wants a moment or two. “God, Tony, say something, anything, I need to know if we broke up and the serum’s so fucked up that I need to check myself into a hospital or have Bruce start-.”

“Technically, no. We didn’t technically break up. I didn’t say I was leaving you forever, I said you needed time to figure yourself out and whether or not you wanted Barnes instead of me,” Tony says and he’s staring into space, not focusing on anything, trying to ignore the assault of images from that day more than three months ago. 

Steve’s hand goes to the chain again, feeling the length of it as Tony sits there, shocked and bombed like someone just hit him with a grenade. 

“Okay, okay,” Steve says as if he’s calculating and figuring out what to do next as if there’s an option.

“Why the hell did you bring me up here?” Tony says. He’s on his feet again. “Why the hell am I here? To torture me? You think this has been easy for me? You think I wanted this? That I wanted to see you with Ms Cuties Pants? I thought we were somewhere good, friends. We decided to be buddies.”

“Ms Cuties Pants?” Steve screws up his face.

“That’s what you lock on – that’s what makes a difference to you? Ms Cuties Pants. Yes, Steve, I tried to be a bigger man, but it still fucking hurt to see you moved on when we didn’t even fucking break up.” Tony screams at him, spittle flying everywhere.

It surprises him when Steve doesn’t strike back, not immediately. “I don’t know if I moved on?”

“You’re dating someone else, Steve, that’s technically the definition of moved on,” Tony snaps back and he wants to walk out but the lost almost desperate look on Steve’s face stops him.

“I am, I am, but-.” Steve says and walks in a circle as if he’s completely lost with no idea what his next turn should be. “I like Sharon well enough-.”

“Oh god, please no. I cannot hear this-.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Tony, let me finish.” 

He doesn’t have a lot of patience for this shit but he stands there, silent with his mouth zippered shut.

“She wants to, I can’t because every time I kiss her-.” 

The words drill holes large and gaping into his heart, in his skull. He literally feels the blood pumping in his arteries. He wants to beg Steve to stop.

In a low, heavy voice, Steve says, “Every time I kiss her, I think of you.” 

He doesn’t wait for reply, instead, Steve crosses the space between them and doesn’t stop, everything, every motion is fluid and perfect. He sweeps his arms around Tony, and plasters his mouth on Tony’s lips. It’s surprising and abrupt and Tony doesn’t react right away. He’s too stunned, but the warmth of Steve around him, encompassing him, draws him and he’s kissing back, pleading for entrance and Steve’s lips part with a moan and he’s tumbling into the kiss. 

Steve’s hands are all over Tony. Large, strong hands clasping his face, holding him, sliding toward his waist – these hands sing out to Tony. He tugs and searches and Tony urges him onward when there are alerts in his head telling him to stop. He doesn’t know where Steve’s head is, he doesn’t even know if Steve is still seeing Ms Cuties Pants. All their pain will be for naught, if Steve hasn’t figured things out, if they are just starting the same mistakes again. But he feels the hardening of Steve’s cock against his leg and he groans and presses against it, just to remember the strength of it. 

Steve trails kisses up and down Tony’s throat, with small murmurings. The heat, the welcoming touch, the need is pronounced and present. It feels like a memory, it feels like tomorrow. It feels like a storm shattering him and he keeps his position, begs for more. Asks for Steve to break him.

His brain’s cylinders misfire and he’s helping Steve, hands against hard erections through the fabric of jeans. Steve grasps his ass and jerks Tony toward him. One hand on his ass, one hand cupping his head Steve ravages Tony’s mouth as a man starved of affection, looking for connection. It urges Tony on, it implores Tony. He loves the feel of Steve’s solidity next to him, the planes of his muscles and the contour of his body. He fits perfectly against Steve, as if they were made for one another, perfectly situated, perfectly formed. He clambers and holds and grasps until Steve’s moaning against him.

The sound juxtaposed against the warmth of Steve jolts Tony back to his senses. He wants this, more than he can say, but he won’t take it this way, he won’t even welcome it when it’s given like this. He places hands against Steve’s chest and pushes him away. 

“No, no, Steve, no. Not like this,” Tony says and hates the fact he’s making this decision, that he’s saying no to Steve again. 

Staggering back, Steve releases Tony and stands paralyzed, faced turned in profile away from him. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Steve hangs his head, presses heels of his hands into his eyes. Tony hears the rapid panting of Steve’s breath. He steps closer, pulls Steve to his shoulder and lays his head there. Tony cards his fingers through Steve’s hair, petting away the hurt at the same time he grapples to find something to say. 

“No, no we shouldn’t have, but it’s not unexpected.” Tony can rationalize anything. Shit back in the day he could rationalize weapons of mass destruction. 

It feels natural and quiet like his soul settles and becomes calm.

“It’s not?”

“Yeah, we’re still attracted to one another, we’re, you know, extremely hot, and we’re guys.”

Steve chuckles and straightens, though he shifts away from Tony, he remains in his personal space. “That isn’t a good excuse.”

“Work with me here, I’m trying,” Tony says and the mood is still light, too light. They’re walking along the precipice, straddling the descent to that place of insane, inexplicable guilt.

“I’m dating Sharon,” Steve states.

“Yep you are,” Tony agrees but he doesn’t want to talk about it, but he knows he has to – it reminds him a lot of dealing with the press. He half expected Steve to storm out, angry and pissed even though he started it. 

“Not sleeping with her, does that count?”

“I don’t think you should get relationship advice from me,” Tony says and goes to sit down. Steve follows him and they sit with a space between them like it’s no man’s land between two armies in a war. “She’s not coming over tonight, is she?”

“God, Tony, no,” Steve says and claps a hand over his eyes. “What the hell did I do?” Even though his words are confused, his tone isn’t pained but more thoughtful, almost quizzical. 

He cannot tell what the hell is going on in Steve’s head. “How do you feel?”

“Honestly?” Steve says, looking at Tony and, reaching across the chasm, clasps a hand in Tony’s. “Like I want to kiss you again, like I want to do so much more.”

“But?” Tony inches toward understanding, but it’s a perilous road. 

“It feels good, but also I feel guilty.”

Tony nods and he wants to say that isn’t unexpected either, but he’s trying to be the better person here. “What do you want to do?”

Steve runs hands through his hair. “I feel like I’m a terrible boyfriend, that I cheated on Sharon and I haven’t been honest with her.”

“Have you even been honest with yourself?” Tony says, and though he means it to sound probing to help Steve, it comes out catty. 

Steve doesn’t take it as a threat, but more as an avenue toward admission. “No, no, I have. Shit, I should fess up, shouldn’t I?”

“About what?” Tony says. “We didn’t even get in each other’s pants.”

“Tony, that’s crude,” Steve says. Standing, he wanders around his living room, picking up mementos, books as if he needs something in his hands, he needs to stay occupied. “No, we didn’t, but still, I’m sure that Sharon doesn’t expect me to be kissing other people.”

“But you haven’t slept together?” Tony asks, and he hates it.

“No, not at all,” Steve says, but he doesn’t look at Tony when he elaborates. “But it isn’t like she hasn’t suggested it.”

Tony coughs and chokes a little. “What?”

“She’s been wanting to, the last time she was up here. A few days ago, she came into my room at night and-.”

“Whoa, there, I do not want to hear that. For God’s sake, man have some mercy,” Tony says. “I would need to be drunk to the gills or high on a stash of Erica’s drugs before I hear anything about you making out with Ms Cuties Pants.”

Steve crosses his arms and glares at Tony. “We’re back to Ms Cuties Pants again?”

“Seems so,” Tony says and he’s not apologetic. Why should he be?

“Oh geez,” Steve replies and bows his head. “You’re right. Damn it, you are right. This isn’t your problem. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done this to you, Tony. It’s my problem, I have to deal with it.”

“Deal with what?” Tony asks and he knows he shouldn’t because, lord only knows what horrible paths that questioning leads to, but he can still taste Steve on his lips.

Steve looks everywhere but at Tony. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

Tony braces himself and grits his teeth. He’s the masochist in this relationship, not Steve. “Yeah, that’s what friends are for.” God, he sounds like a Hallmark greeting card.

“I can’t. I don’t want to have. I don’t want to have sex with her,” Steve says and slumps down into the chair, again.

“You said that, before,” Tony says. 

Steve leans forward with his elbows on knees and his hands empty and open before him. “I think I have to break up with her.”

Tony feels like he should keep his mouth shut. He feels like he has the inside track to a horse race and he’s one of the jockeys. “I- hmm, do you really want me to comment on that?”

“We didn’t break up,” Steve states and it is a statement not a question.

“No, not like, I never want to see you again. Or Hasta la vista, baby.” 

Steve pats the place on his t-shirt where the necklace hangs and the impression of the pendant weighs against the thick fabric. “No, we never said that.” He gazes up at Tony. “I have to make this right. I need to clean house. I can’t lead her on, and I can’t lead you on.”

“I-.” Tony wants to reassure him, wants to tell him how much he loves him but he knows that Steve is processing, working through the issues that Tony left him for in the first place. 

“Let me figure it out, Tony, I swear I will.”

“What does that mean for us, though?” Tony says and he hates being at the mercy of others. Can he trust Steve with his heart? Is it possible, when he’s been so blasé about it in the first place?

Steve drops his gaze for a moment, but then looks back up at Tony. “I can only tell you that I’m going to try. I’m going to try. I get that this is my life now, I get that I can’t hope to wake up to something different. If I can accept the fact that parts of my past will haunt me in more ways than one for the rest of my life, then I think I can move on.”

Tony nods and decides it’s probably time to cut out, because he’s at least ahead of the game, but he has one more thing to ask. “Can I ask you one thing?”

“Sure, Tony.”

“What’s the necklace?”

Steve only smiles and says, “A memento from the good old days.”

“Is it from him?”

“No.”

“From her?”

“No,” Steve says and then adds. “No more questions.”

Tony accepts it but it still hurts. He walks to the door and turns around. “Don’t regret a kiss, Steve. I don’t.”

“I’ll try.”

As he opens the door, he peers back at Steve. “You still owe me that burger.”

“I sure do.” Steve says and smiles.


	5. Chapter 5

“Tony I need you to fix this yesterday,” Pepper says as her image wavers overhead. Tony taps the console and scowls. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s causing major problems with production. Manufacturing is affected, Tony, manufacturing.”

Tony shakes his head and plays a rhythm on the console with his fingertips. He’s got the music turned down in deference to Pepper. “I’m not sure that’s possible. The way the artificial intelligence network is built, the way I built it, doesn’t allow for the computerized manufacturing to be affected by the A.I. It isn’t part of the system at all.”

“Well then tell me why we’re having to reboot the system, and reinitiate the downloaded plans. I have line managers in China sending alerts all the way up through the channels.” Pepper rubs at the bridge of her nose. “It’s spreading, Tony. This infection or glitch or whatever it is, you have to get it under control.”

“I’m not having any problems over here,” Tony notes and brings up the data to stream overhead as he speaks with Pepper over the holo-vid conference line. “This is truly a mystery.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what,” he says but he doesn’t turn his attention to her, instead he watches the stream of code, trying to narrow down the reason why the bug keeps re-infecting the code. “It must be deeper.”

“Deeper? What? Stop it, stop loving the mystery and give me answers, Tony.”

“I’m not,” Tony says and realizes he is enjoying the hunt for the answer, but he’d never relish anything that would lead Pepper to pinch her face so much. He picks up one of his stylists which he never uses, but has a tendency to leave all over his labs to rap out a beat. “I am intrigued, though.”

Pepper leans close into the camera which has the strange effect to cause her head to appear three times larger in proportion to her body in the holographic display. “Well, great for you. Meanwhile your company is going to take a good hit in market if we can’t bring the inventory to the consumers this coming holiday season This is affected our bottom line all the way out six months.”

“I got this, Pep, I swear,” he says. This should be child’s play when compared against his complicated relationship with Steve. Since his last encounter with Steve, they’d tiptoed around one another. Right now they had a relationship without definition.

“Tony, Tony are you even listening to me?” Pepper says and he imagines her knocking on his head with her knuckles.

“”Yeah, I get it, Pepper. I’m working on it.” 

“Are you?” Pepper says and her tone changes its tenor. She pauses as if she’s studying him, looking for clues. “Are you okay, Tony? I know this hasn’t been easy for you.”

He waves her off. “Me? Fine, why do you ask?”

“Seriously,” she deadpans. “Look who you’re talking to, Tony. I know you, I know how you are. What’s going on?”

He huffs out a breath, but the idea of confessing his fears is tantalizingly provocative. He tries to feign innocence. “Don’t know what you’re-.”

“Don’t start with me, is it Steve?”

“Why would it be Steve?”

“Tony, please,” Pepper says. “Maybe I should talk to Erica about the issues we have in China-.”

“No,” Tony says. He’s mildly insulted that she’d go to a second rate charlatan when she can have the real thing. “I’m fine, everything’s fine.”

“Tony.”

“I kissed Steve.”

“What?” Pepper says with surprise that’s mixed with a pop of joy. “That’s, that’s great, Tony. Are you two back-.”

“Technically, he kissed me, but then I kissed him back. I think I even felt him up a little, but not before he grabbed my ass.”

“Wait, I don’t need the details,” Pepper says and does this little thing with her fingers as if she’s trying to get stuck gum off of them. 

“No, no you don’t. But you did ask, and no, we’re not back together,” Tony says. “Steve’s, he’s, he’s not ready, yet. He went to D.C. last week.”

“D.C.?” Even her voice sounds ominous.

“Yeah, that’s where his girlfriend lives,” Tony says and he slumps down on the stool he’s perched on. “Now, I’m waiting to find out if I have a chance or if he’s left me for good.”

“Is he still there?” 

“There?”

Pepper rolls her eyes because she knows he’s pretending not to follow. “Is he still in D.C.?”

“No, he’s back. Technically, he went for some hearing on the whole thing in the Potomac again. Amazing how these ass clowns don’t know when to give it up. But he stayed longer, and she’s there.”

“And, he’s there,” she fills in for him.

“Well, now he’s back, but we haven’t spoken.”

“Wow, Tony, I didn’t know,” Pepper says. “Maybe I should talk to Erica.”

“No,” Tony snaps. “I can do this, Pepper, with my eyes closed. I can figure this out.”

She considers him and then sighs. “Okay, but what about Steve?”

“He came back a few nights ago, but I haven’t heard or seen him. JARVIS told me he arrived around midnight Tuesday, went straight back to his floor, not sure what he’s doing-.”

She interrupts him. “I doubt that.”

“Okay, fine, he’s been doing his normal routine, like there’s nothing wrong, like I’m not sitting here tearing my hair out wondering if something’s changed,” Tony says.

“Have you asked him?”

He looks everywhere but at the cameras. “No.”

“Tony, maybe he’s waiting for you to go to him. He might not want to jump back into your relationship without a good idea from you whether or not it’s welcome. You said he kissed you?”

“Yeah, he did,” Tony says and wants it to have been so much more. “He knows I’m interested.”

“Well then, he was interested enough then, I’d take that as a good sign.”

“Maybe,” Tony says, and he starts weighing the possibilities. “But why is he not talking with me now?”

She shakes her head and her ponytail swings. “I don’t know. He’s a pretty stoic guy, maybe he’s having a hard time coming to terms with everything.”

She hit the nail on the head there, he can attest to it.

“Check out my problems, please?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.” 

“Thank you, Tony.”

“Love you, Pep,” he says and winks at her. 

She smiles and then says, “Good luck, Tony. With everything.”

“Thanks,” Tony says and cuts the connection. He decides it’s best to focus on the problem at hand and it might help assuage the problem he has with the walking Dorito. He chuckles at that, and remembers a time he watched Steve devour chips and lick his fingers clean. Granted it wasn’t Doritos, but still it was that fake orange cheese color- what is he doing to himself? 

“I have to stop, just stop.”

“Stop?” 

He jolts and finds Erica standing in the middle of his lab. She’s wearing what he can only describe as a cross between a Catholic School girl’s uniform and a biker chick’s clothes. She has on a blue plaid short skirt that nuns would be shocked over the length, a white blouse and a black leather jacket. She’s wearing knee-high white socks and actual saddle shoes. Where the hell did she get them? She pops her gum and smiles. He thinks his life transformed into a book by Nabokov. 

“Erica?”

“Yep, in the flesh. You want I see what you’re looking at there,” Erica points to the string of code still flowing around him like a waterfall. 

He swipes it away and says, “They’re still having some massive problems over on the West Coast. And it seems to be spread to China and the manufacturing division.” It occurs to him that she doesn’t have access to their operating systems and this new problem popped up while she’s been under his watchful eye. Unless she figured out how JARVIS inter-relates with himself – which is near to impossible with the security he’s constructed – she’s in the clear. It must be someone, or something else.

“Want me to go back?” She cracks the gum and waits.

“You’re not supposed to be in my lab,” he comments.

“Nope, I’m not,” she says as she begins to wander around the space. She bobs a little to the background music that isn’t as high in volume as he likes it but he was talking to Pepper. “Nice.” She pokes at Dum-E who doesn’t seem to like her and squeals away. “Rudimentary.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?”

“What? I don’t get a day off?” She spins around and her short pleated skirt flares up and he gets a peek at her thong underwear – lacy and red. He feels a little like a pervert. 

“Okay, yeah, take the day, take the week, go see New York.” He lowers his gaze and waves at her a few times.

She’s undeterred and ends up next to him, her breasts which happen to be spilling out of the white two sizes too small blouse press against him. “I heard you have a nice observation deck, can see the whole of lower Manhattan. Wanna show it to me?”

He peers down at her cleavage, thinks maybe he should try this, it wouldn’t hurt anything. Steve hasn’t updated him or made a move or anything. He realizes he has no idea where her hands are, but then he knows when they travel to the front of his jeans.

“Come on, it’ll be fun. Get away from the code for a while, smoke a few, drink a lot. I’ll blow you, you’d like that right?” She smiles and there’s something alluringly dangerous about her eyes. He can’t get a grip on what color they might be. 

He leans in, ready to take the leap. 

“Sir, there’s a call from Captain Rogers on the line.”

“Tell him I’m busy.”

“He would like to speak with you.”

For a moment he considers Steve request, but the man spent a week in D.C. with his girlfriend and Tony can’t see past it. Not now, not right now. Steve had returned home and not a peep, not a word. Tony will not be the one to relent and kowtow that is not in his nature. “Unless the city’s being overwhelmed by aliens, I don’t want to hear about it.” 

JARVIS falls silent and Tony turns back to Erica who shoves her one hand down the front of his pants, stroking him hard along his dick. 

“You want it here, or we can do it on the observation deck. You can watch the entire world while I suck you off.”

He feels the blood rushing, physically draining from his brain, the rest of his body to pool in his dick as it hardens. No one has touched him in months, and God he needs this, craves the touch, anyone’s touch other than his own hand.

“I think that would be appropriate.” He knows it is completely the opposite; he’s hungry for it. 

She slips her hand out of his pants and bring her fingertips up to her mouth, licking each in turn. “Hmm, tastes good. Let’s go, now.”

He nearly groans, but does roll his eyes as something deep in his gut clenches. He grasps her hand and draws her along after him. They beeline it to the elevator and into the car before he decides now is as good a time as any to begin the festivities. She responds to his attack with a deft knowledge that just about does him in. She shoves her hand down his pants again, jerking him and he’s delirious with the torture. 

He’s hard, at least he’s hard, but why the fuck is he thinking of Steve? He runs a hand up into her hair and tugs, she moans into his kiss and it feels good enough. But not right, there’s something hollow and superficial. But he likes this, he’s Tony fucking Stark. He plays around, runs the field, makes homeruns as if he’s an all-star player. And he is an all-star player. 

The elevator stops at the observation deck, the perch high above the rest of the Tower, and he staggers away from her. He tugs her hand away from him and says, “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“You can’t, seems like you were pretty into it a couple of seconds ago,” Erica says with arched brows. Her lips are swollen from his kisses, her blouse in disarray from his roaming hands.

The elevator doors start to open. “I’m sorry, I’m just not going to do this, right now.” He steps off the elevator and bumps right into Steve. “Steve, shit.”

Erica giggles as she watches them try and find their footing both literally and figuratively. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Steve says as he glances between the two of them. It’s painfully obvious what they were doing. “I’ll just-.” He points to the elevator.

“Oh no,” Erica winks at him. “Not on my account you won’t.” She presses the button, mouths _call me_ to Tony, and the door close, leaving Tony at Steve’s mercy.

He turns back to Steve, who’s looking everywhere but at Tony. 

“I’m sorry, I’ll go,” Tony says but then he spots the wine bottle and the glasses near the lounge chairs of the inside portion of the deck. It’s a beautiful day out and the view of the city through the ceiling to floor windows amazes. But he has no eyes for it, he only concentrates on the wine, the single candle, the box sitting on the table. "Jesus.”

“Yeah, um, not exactly,” Steve says. “I think it would be best for me to go.” 

Before he can escape, Tony catches his arm. “Not that fast.”

“I think it’s obvious that you didn’t have the time to wait for me.”

“Me, I didn’t have the time?” Tony says. “You’re the one who just spent a romantic week with your girlfriend, after you kissed me and told me you didn’t want to lead me on.” He’s lashing out because he doesn’t want to face the truth. He fucked up.

“I was called to D.C. to testify, again. And then I went to talk to my therapist, if you want to know.” Blood heats Steve’s face, warming his cheeks to a high blush.

“Oh and you didn’t talk to Ms. Cutie Pants at all?” Tony says and tries to avoid looking at the romantic little scene before them, but it’s impossible _not_ to look. 

“Still with the names?” Steve says and yanks his arm free. “I went and talked to her. Yes, if you want to know. We spent a few hours talking things out. I explained a lot to her and I figured it out, Tony, I figured it out.” He points to the wineglasses. 

“And you expected me just to wait around until you deemed it appropriate to tell me? I mean you’ve been back for days.” 

“I spent a lot of time making sure. I didn’t want to jump from Sharon’s arms to yours. I wanted to do what you said. I didn’t want it to be about avoiding emotional upset. So I spent a few days processing.” Steve does a little pace back and forth as if he’s forgotten something. “I did what you said, what you wanted me to do all along. You know, sometimes you really piss me off.”

Tony throws back his head and laughs and it’s genuine, not forced in anyway. But it’s not laughter to join in on, it mocks. “Me? I piss you off. You’ve been running around with the niece of your former love, which is all kinds of creepy I must add, and you expect me to sit around and wait for you.”

“Stark, you are an arrogant, self-absorbed, bastard.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Steve steps into his personal space. “You need a lesson in humility, Stark. You think you understand, you know, what’s going on. You’re a futurist that refuses to learn from the past. You put so little value on the past that you mock it every chance you get.”

“Stark, now. Is that the way it is?” Tony doesn’t get intimidated easily. He stands his ground. “Maybe you should just call me sir.”

Steve hisses at him. “Don’t bet on it.”

“Oh how far we’ve come since the wide-eyed innocent Stevie boy from the 1940s.”

“Stark,” Steve warns.

“What would your sweet Peggy think of you now?”

“You want to go for it? You want to try me?” Steve says and he’s standing so close to Tony that he can feel the heat of his breath. It reminds him of the Helicarrier and Loki’s staff, but they don’t have that as an excuse this time. This is pure, unmitigated anger and frustration. 

“Oh, I can take you any day of the week, soldier boy.”

Steve cocks his head and, with a contemptuous smile says, “Put on the suit.”

“Oh don’t tempt me.”

“Who’s tempting, I’m ordering you.”

“Fuck you, Rogers.”

“Can’t stand the heat, Stark?”

“Oh no you don’t. Tell you what. You got it. Meet you down in the training room in ten.”

“Let’s see if you have the courage to show up,” Steve says and slams his fist on the elevator call button. JARVIS must have expected it, or had been monitoring their conversation because the car appears and Steve walks in. “See you in ten.”

Ten minutes later, Tony walks into the training room with his newest version of the Iron Man armor on. He hasn’t had an occasion to actually don the armor yet or test it out; it isn’t even named. But it’s a sleek dark blue black with gold. Steve’s already in the training room with suit and shield ready, though he’s not wearing the helmet. 

Tony designed the training room. It took him months. It has a central pillar with a command center to help someone training on their own, plus platforms and structural supports through out to use as obstacles, safety areas or even to use for exercises. It’s a large multi-story room with specially constructed walls and support beams to ensure it can take the fire power of the armor or a hit by a Hulk. 

Suited up in his Avengers Captain America suit with his shield, Steve waits as Tony ambles into the room.

“You sure you want to do this, Capsicle. The armor might be a little out of your league.”

“Try me,” Steve says and rushes at him. Tony launches and Steve follows by leaping from one of the many platforms. He grabs onto Tony’s leg adding his weight and the suit falters. 

Listing to the side, Tony fires up and says, “JARVIS, man, this is simple flight control. What are you doing to me?” 

They spiral down as JARVIS replies, “I was unaware you wanted me to join in on your argument with Captain Rogers. I assumed you wanted to win this on your own, sir.”

“Being a little bit of a piss-ant, aren’t you, JARVIS.”

As they crash to the floor, Steve rolls and stands up while Tony struggles to get back to his feet. This suit is more flexible, nearly a second skin in some ways, but not quite there yet. He still feels a little like a turtle caught on its back. He fires his thrusters and takes flight. It’s a mean maneuver to twist around and straighten out in flight from a supine position on the floor, but he has it mastered.

“Can’t fight your own battles, I see,” Steve says and pitches the shield at him with a wide arc. He barely has time to deflect and the disk ricochets off one of the support beams as Steve springs into the air with a somersault to boot to catch it. 

Tony darts over, and blasts it once with his repulsor, knocking it off course. It clatters to the floor instead of finding its place in Steve’s hand. Steve dives for it and Tony buzzes over him, throwing him off balances as he goes it for the shield. Tumbling, Steve manages to ball up and roll into the fall as he picks up the shield, rotates and slams it straight into Tony’s forearm.

Tony tries to spin out of the way, tries to propel upward again, but Steve grabs hold of his boot, and throws him with a certain amount of ferociousness. He bashes into the wall, sliding down and sitting dazed for a moment as Steve scoops up his shield and races at him again.

This time he doesn’t bother trying to throw the shield, instead he’s intent on using it as a bludgeoning weapon. Tony reacts and shoots the repulsor at him, not thinking and the blast strikes the shield with a glare of light that blinds. Steve’s thrown backward because he’s not braced for their special move, and drops to the ground. 

“Shit,” Tony says, realizing this has gotten out of hand too fast, too quickly. “Steve, let’s not-.”

As Steve starts to lower the shield, Tony’s repulsor fires again of its own accord. Lightning fast, Steve hunches down and protects against the onslaught.

“Christ, JARVIS, I didn’t mean that kind of help,” Tony says and tries to pull his arm back and command the weapons array to shut down. The armor does the opposite. The shoulders open and a multitude of small rockets fire, zeroing in on Steve. “Steve!”

Catapulting to his feet, Steve weaves through the barrage using the shield, and the platforms scattered throughout the training room as a barrier against the attack. “Tony, damn it. What the hell are you doing?”

“JARVIS, God damn it, stop it,” Tony says and the armor marches toward Steve. “JARVIS, answer me.” But Tony isn’t moving, isn’t walking, the armor is. Tony’s a captive of the armor as it stalks Steve.

“Is there a problem, sir?”

The suit shifts and his arms come up as the repulsors charge. “Ya think? I think we’re a little over the top with our response, J-man.”

The repulsors let off a round while Steve takes cover behind a platform. “Tony, is this how it is? You really want to go this way?” He can hear the tension in Steve’s voice, not fear, not hatred, but confusion and hurt.

“No, God, no. I’m not doing this. I’m trying to stop it,” he yells and hopes to hell the suit broadcasts his words. “JARVIS, stop and desist the attack on Captain Rogers.”

“I apologize, sir, but we are currently not attacking anyone.”

“Son of a bitch,” Tony says as the repulsors blaze a trail along the side of the platform, and then he’s rounded the corner, not of his own volition. Steve’s crouched behind the platform. “Override code, 070418. Authorization Anthony Stark, check voice patterns and iris identification-.”

“No override with that code exists. Authorization not recognized.” 

“Shit,” Tony says and the shoulder weapons explode outward, a dozen missiles aimed directly at Steve as he leaps across the platform and tucks under the shield. The blasts rockets around Steve but Tony hears a deafening cry and he knows, knows down in his bones one of the projectiles hit.

“Steve,” Tony screams and somehow manages to yank open the faceplate. Steve’s disappeared, probably crawled behind another one of the support struts, or a platform. “The suit-.”

“Damn it, Tony, stop,” Steve says. “What are you trying to prove?” 

The suit turns toward Steve’s position behind the central pillar with the command console. Tony stomps forward, his footfalls echoing in the vast chamber. He needs to put the faceplate back down so he can access the HUD. But he has no control over the suit. “I don’t, Steve, the suit. The suit’s crazy, I can’t stop it. I don’t have con-.”

As he turns the corner to search for Steve, the edge of the shield impacts the shoulder right where it connects to the collar, near the neck of the armor. Steve smashes the shield twice more, each blow jarring and reverberating through the armor. The sheer strength behind the strikes is utterly astounding. The armor splits, cracking along the metal alloy.

“What the hell are you doing?” Steve says and Tony sees there’s faint bloody gash near his temple and the idea, the very image of one of the missiles hitting Steve in the head turns Tony’s stomach. 

He clenches and swallows down bile as Steve continues his onslaught. Through gritted teeth, Tony says, “Please, Steve, stop the suit. I can’t control the suit.”

“What?” Steve says from his perch on Tony’s back and then pauses.

A mistake.

Both of them realize it in the same instant. “No,” Tony cries out and the armor charges the unibeam. “Go, Steve, go.”

In an instant, Steve sprints away, dodging through the obstacles – the support beams, the platforms for training – but it doesn’t matter. Tony tries to force the suit to turn, he reengages the faceplate so that he can access the HUD. 

He watches in horror as Steve’s heat signature reads over the statistics, and the heart and head are targeted. “Stop it, JARVIS, son of a bitch, stop.”

“I am unsure of what you speak, sir.”

“Damn it, this isn’t Space Odyssey and you are not HAL.” He’s trying to give Steve time to leave but it doesn’t matter.

An announcement in the room clear and foreboding sounds, “All doors and exits locked.”

“Jesus,” Tony says and wants to weep. He screams, “Get to the central pillar, opens up the room. Get out.”

“Tony,” Steve yells to him. “I’m not leaving. Can you stop it?”

He cannot answer, the suit’s external communication has shut down. “Damn it, JARVIS, have mercy on me.”

“I am not sure what the current problem is, sir. Perhaps if you explained it?” 

There’s only so long Steve can run and hide, and then run and hide again. The unibeam will kill him, one way or another. The armor pounds across the floor, each step like a jolt into Tony’s brain. As he marches around the support strut, Steve jumps and lands on top of the armor, straddling him like he’s riding piggyback. 

He rips open the helmet and tears at the circuits along the neck. “Tell me what to do, I don’t want to hurt you, Tony.”

At the top of his lungs, Tony screams, “You need to cut the pow-.” The armor’s arm lifts up and the hand turns the palm, the repulsor, aim at Steve. “Christ, no!”

Steve jerks up the shield and the blast hits it, but he’s able to angle the shield enough to protect himself from any secondary burns. The repulsor discharges twice before his left arm comes up to join the first. 

This time, Steve has no choice but to hurl himself from Tony and hunker down behind the shield. The detonation hits him and then Steve tilts the shield to slam the fire power back into Tony. It doesn’t hit the right spot to deactivate the armor, but it throws Tony against the wall. It gives Steve a moment’s pause.

“Tony?”

“You need to cut the power,” Tony says. He tries to lift his hands, scrub at the suit, but it doesn’t give an inch. 

The unibeam charges again, and Tony knows, comprehends deep in his bones that this is it. Steve is going to die. Instead of finding cover, Steve charges straight for Tony using the shield for cover and for defense. The unibeam bursts forth with a ray like a solar flare, deadly, bright, and scorching. It hits the shield dead on and the blaze blinds to a white light. Amazingly, Steve only staggers for a moment, braces, and surges forward. The concentration power beam ruptures outward with a torrent of pure light and heat. Kicking out, Steve manages to trip up Tony and the suit topples, the beam burning a streak across the training room. The smell of smoke and charred metal heavy in the room. 

The possessed armor offers Steve no reprieve as it moves to right itself. “Hurry, Steve,” Tony urges and before he’s finished with his plea Steve’s on him, the shield raised for impact. It crashes down and splits open the chest of the suit, cracking the casing for the suit-embedded arc reactor. He has only seconds to get the job completed. Again, the arms of the suit target Steve with their repulsors. He ignores them and swings the shield again for the disabling blow.

He’s too late.

The repulsors discharge and the strike rings true. Steve flies backward, tumbling and banging into the support strut. The shield skids to the floor. 

“Steve, Jesus, Steve?” Tony says and there’s no response. “Damn it, Steve.” He wants to move, he shifts and abruptly the total lock out of the suit disappears and he’s falling forward toward Steve. Scrambling, he gets to Steve side. 

He’s lying prone, the gash on his temple bleeding sluggishly. Tony reaches out and the thought comes to the back of his brain that he shouldn’t move an injured person. He can’t stop himself.

He chokes when he sees the massive burn across Steve’s left shoulder. He must have turned on time to miss the other repulsor completely. The one burn though is serious, at least a second, possibly third degree. He needs to get help. Struggling to his feet, he starts to address JARVIS, but stops.

The door locks release and Bruce rushes in. 

“Bruce?”

“What happened?” He’s on his knees next to Steve before Tony can piece together a reasonable explanation for his sudden appearance. 

“Sir, I was able to override the system error and return the suit’s functions and open the doors.”

He wants to scream and yell at JARVIS, but he has no one to blame but himself. He turns his attention to Steve. The faceplate open, he asks, “How bad?”

“Looks like third degree, we need to get him to the medical level.”

“Sir, I’ve alerted the on-call medical staff and they are on their way with a gurney.” 

“Thanks,” Tony says with a tinge of resentment in his voice. He can’t help it, the idea that JARVIS glitched and tried to kill Steve hurts like hell. 

Bruce begins to peel off the Captain America uniform, as the emergency crew rushes into the room. As he tugs it open, the chain, the necklace appears through the tatters of what’s left of his undershirt. Bruce removes it as the nurses and doctor begin to examine Steve. 

“Is he bad? Is it bad?” Tony says and Bruce walks over to him.

“Let’s get you out of the armor,” Bruce says. 

Without a thought, Tony says, “Armor retract.” It listens to his commands and he hates himself a little more. He steps out of it as it moves to the side. “Close and pack.” It folds up into a compact case.

“What the hell happened in here?” Clint says from the entrance. Standing behind him is Natasha, her expression shocked. 

“JARVIS, go into basic mode only.”

“Yes, sir.”

“JARVIS has a glitch or something.” He cannot even think or talk or move. His hands are shaking, his brain feels white and empty and numb. 

“Or something.” He hears someone say. He’s not sure because the world around him funnels and darkens. 

He claps hands over his face. Someone takes his elbow and steers him out of the training room, he allows it because he cannot move or think. What the hell happened? 

Questions come and he hears them all, but he’s not sure if he answers them.

_Were you training?_

_No._

_How did it happen?_

_I don’t know._

_What kind of glitch?_

He doesn’t answer, he remains frozen, paralyzed by the revelation of what he’s done to Steve.

_Are we under attack?_

_I don’t understand?_

_You said JARVIS had a glitch, is JARVIS compromised?_

_Yes._

_We need to fix this._

He looks up at Natasha, because it is her voice, stone and cold and agony all wrapped into one. “I put him on basic mode. He won’t be able to re-initiate anything beyond the most basic functions until I allow it.”

“What were you doing in full armor in the training room?” Clint asks as he leans against the counter. He’s fuming, seething at Tony. It’s a surprise that he hasn’t attacked him. Tony scans the room, recognizes he’s in the waiting room in medical. He has no memory of walking here.

“Put on the suit,” Tony mutters and crumples in the seat. “We got hot, angry, decided to go a few rounds.”

“And you used your repulsors?” Clint snaps at him. His hands are fisted, his knuckles white. Tony’s half surprised he hasn’t been punched yet.

“No, I didn’t. The damned suit went ballistic. Haywire, there’s been some issues out West with JARVIS, I didn’t think it affected JARVIS here. I had it isolated, I thought it was isolated.” Tony leans forward and thinks why the hell he has plastic chairs in the waiting room in his damned Tower. He could have leather recliners. It doesn’t matter; he’d still hates it. “It was isolated.”

A hand, soft, lands on his back and he’s not sure who it is. He doesn’t look up. 

“Tony, we have to understand this,” Natasha says. “We have to know if we’re under attack.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Stark Industries has been having difficulty with their A.I. But, but, the girl, the magenta haired girl. She was working on it.”

“Now it’s here.”

“Yes.”

“So is the girl,” Natasha says.

“It was getting worse in California and China; bad – Pepper needed me to -.” He stops. “God damn it.” He jumps up and paces around the room. “I need to find out how he’s doing. Where’s Bruce?”

“Right here,” Bruce walks into the waiting room and that gentle smile is offered. It calms Tony; it’s a wonder that Bruce can be the cornerstone for all of them, the foundation, their rock when he cannot do it for himself. “The doctors are working on it. He’s a little shocky but they think he’s doing well.”

“Shock? The serum?”

Bruce places a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “He’s going to be okay. It’ll hurt for a while, he needs to heal, but it won’t take long, not with the serum.” He reaches over and cups Tony’s hand. “I think someone needs to keep this for him.” He drops the necklace in Tony’s palm.

“I don’t think I’m the person.”

“I think you are,” Bruce says and closes Tony’s hand over the necklace. 

Before he can protest, the door opens and the doctor enters. “Mister Stark, he’s asking for you.”

“How is he?” Natasha asks. 

“He’ll be fine, he needs rest but already the serum has worked its miracles. The third degree burns are bad, but the serum is working. He’s come out of the shock and is resting, he’d like to speak with Mister Stark.”

Tony nods his head several times, a nervous tick. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but he clasps the necklace in his palm, feels the cut of it against his skin. “Okay, yeah, sure.”

The doctor smiles, it’s softens his hard, wrinkled features. He’s the senior doctor, and the best in his field of trauma and emergency surgery. He’s not a burn specialist, so Tony will need to consult one.

“Have you called a specialist-.”

“Of course, but I assure you we’ve done everything necessary for the Captain’s speedy recovery.”

The air around him feels thick and he inhales heavily. He bites back his fears and nods his head again. “He lost, he lost consciousness.” He battles the air, the fears, everything to get the words out.

“Captain Rogers has sustained a significant impact causing a concussion. But it’s showing signs of improvement. We have the lights dimmed to decrease the sensitivities there. Would you like to see him now?” The doctor’s tall, much taller than Tony. His weathered features somehow he reminds Tony of a nice version of Nick Fury. This makes him smile and the doctor takes it as a good sign. “If you need something, we could offer you some medication to calm your nerves?”

“No, I just want to see him.” It surprises him how truthful that statement is. 

“Come,” the doctor says and leads the way.

It’s only a short distance, but the hallway expands, lengthens and he’s trudging through it like waist high snow. He notices the nurses and other doctors on call, all arrived and attending Steve. Everyone cares for Steve; it’s hard not to.

The doctor goes to open the door, and Tony says, “Thanks, I’d like to take a moment before-.”

“Oh, of course.”

The doctor walks off and leaves Tony on the precipice between facing Steve and running away. He fists his hands and realizes the necklace cuts into his palm. He uncurls his fingers to discover the silver chain, the ring attached to the necklace. It’s the ring he threw at Steve, it’s the ring from the cabin all those months ago, the one he abandoned, the one he intended to propose to Steve, to marry Steve.

“All this time,” he murmurs. It doesn’t give him power, or resolve, or hope. It turns the page, it changes things, but doesn’t fix everything, but it is glue, it does adhere, it brings them to the same place. 

He enters the room.


	6. Chapter 6

Tony shoulders open the door to his penthouse master suite; it’s a pain to have JARVIS non-functional but he still needs to evaluate a good chunk of the base code before he can allow the A.I. to come back on line. Meanwhile he has Happy checking into security breaches out in California, Maria Hill working on the breaches on the East Coast, and Pepper has decided that a sit down would be a good idea. She’s flying in as soon as she finishes up dealing with the contract deficiencies issues. Without the A.I. intervening and assisting, Tony’s life has gotten exponentially more complex. Thank God Pepper will be appearing soon. Even if she’s not his personal assistant anymore, having her around is like a security blanket.

Shaking his head, he concentrates on the present, not on what he has to do, but what he needs to do. With a tray of food in hand, Tony pads across the long hallway to his bedroom only to be stopped by voices. He sidles up to the wall, cradles the tray in his hands and waits.

“Your strength returns, my friend.”

“I’m still stiff, skin feels tight, but I expect a few rounds in the gym and I’ll be as good as new,” Steve replies. From his position, Tony cannot see Steve, but spots Thor sitting in the chair next to the window. He can only assume Steve is in the companion chair to the side.

“And your spirits?”

There’s a pause and then Steve answers, “They could be better, but I think that’s my own fault.”

“What would bring you to this conclusion?”

“Tony and I have spent so much time over the past few months tiptoeing around one another, not facing the truth that I think it’s just compounded and caused more problems than solved.” 

“I know this fate, my friend. As boys, Loki and I would spend many a day fighting but never truly confronting the problem. Loki had always been jealous of our father’s love for me, and well, he should have, but he never truly said it. We danced around that irksome fact for years, until it caused ruin not only on Asgard, but through the Nine Realms and here as well.” Fatigue laces throughout Thor’s words.

Steve smirks. “I hope Tony and I don’t bring so much harm to so many places because we can’t figure out our love life.”

Thor leans out of Tony’s view. “You, my friend, must be brave and face what comes next.”

“Yes,” Steve replies. There’s a silence and Tony thinks it might be safe to enter the room, but then he adds, “I’ve made too many mistakes. Sometimes I think I spend too much time as Captain America, and not enough time in the mindset of Steve Rogers.”

“This maybe truth. I understand this, it is hard to break out of it.” There’s movement and Tony sees Thor stand. “When you are ready, my friend, I would be honored to assist in your rehabilitation.”

He catches a glimpses of Steve as he reaches up and shakes Thor’s hand. “Thanks, Thor.”

Thor does a short bow and says, “My brother.” He crosses the floor and acknowledges Tony with a quick nod. He’s out the door and gone before Tony musters up the courage to enter the room.

“You can come in now, Tony,” Steve says and Tony relaxes the hunch of his shoulders. He straightens and enters the room, toting the tray along with him. It’s chuck full of food stuffs, he couldn’t put enough snacks and major meals on it. 

“Brought lunch,” Tony says and brings the tray to set it on the table. He ignores the massive bed in the room, the one he insisted that Steve sleep in while he resided in the lounge chair to the side of the room, ready to leap up at a moment’s notice if he needed anything during the long nights of Steve’s convalesces. 

Steve had protested. A lot had happened in the short week since JARVIS went nuts and attacked Captain America. But one thing hadn’t happened; they hadn’t actually talked. Sure, he visited Steve in the medical wing of the Tower. Sure, Steve kept telling him it was all right, that he would heal. Sure, Tony spent the obligated hours curled up on the comfort lacking couch in the hospital room with Steve. They’d done everything, everyone would speculate, what they hadn’t done is talk.

Still, Tony isn’t sure he’s ready to talk. In order to avoid said topic, Tony diverts and distracts. He’s an expert at it, after all he’s spent years dealing with the paparazzi. “Look at what we have today.” He waves at the overloaded tray. “Club sandwiches made with turkey – just how you like. Lots of chocolate milk, salad, some fruit, and chicken noodle soup.” Tony opens the small portable crockpot. “Homemade by the man Bruce himself. Oh and look, here you have apple pie, just for you, Captain Amer-.”

“Tony,” Steve says and reaches for his hand, grasping it lightly but firmly. “Stop.”

Looking up, Tony pauses in his description of the luncheon menu to meet Steve’s eyes. He cannot say it hasn’t been hard to do so in the last days. He wants to be able to mend their relationship but he’s utterly devoid of ideas on how to do that, open and empty. 

As he rests in the cushioned chair, Steve seems oblivious to Tony’s dilemma, but he isn’t. While he may look all the picture of ease and leisure as he recuperates, his expression tells a different story. It’s pained and confused, and slightly bemused by Tony’s continued actions. Even though the scars of the burns remain, they’ve healed and faded considerably. In order to allow for his skin to heal, Steve hasn’t donned a shirt in days. The flesh across his shoulder and chest shows the injury with its light pink and slight modeled effect. Each day it decreases and dissipates a little more, but, though it disappears the fact does not alleviate Tony’s guilt.

He drops the glass top back on the crockpot, spreads his hands and lowers his eyes. He can’t look at Steve. “This is my fault. You could have died and I would have killed you.”

Steve stretches across the small glass topped table. It stresses the tightened healing skin, but he only reacts with a slight grimace as he clasps Tony’s hand. “It wasn’t you. Technology, what did I tell you about technology.” 

He has that half grin he often gives Tony. It can mock and laugh, and join and break if he wants it to, but this time it only offers Tony an easy way out. “It wasn’t you,” he says again.

“I created JARVIS.”

Steve squeezes Tony’s hand and slips away. He frowns as he reclines in the chair, obviously still hurting. “You’ll fix JARVIS.” Steve picks up one of the plates with a sandwich and balances it on the arm of the chair as he scans the horizon of the cityscape outside the penthouse windows. 

It’s a breathtaking day with bright sunlight that scorches against the brilliant steel landscape of metal mountains around them. The mid-day sun streams into the room, the light like liquid gold as it glimmers off of Steve’s hair, his cheekbones, his shoulders. There’s a certain celestial beauty about him that Steve is oblivious to – which is part of his allure Tony thinks. 

Tony turns away, looks into the mountains of steel surrounding them. He squints in the harsh afternoon light as it hits him. He thinks he doesn’t look as saintly. “Maybe,” he murmurs.

“It was both of our fault, Tony.”

Tony only shakes his head and laughs, though there is nothing joyful about it. “And how do you figure that.”

“I was hot, angry to see you with that gal, Erica. Considering what I-.” He stops and starts again “I was seething and I wanted to do something, anything to get it out, and show you.”

“You were angry,” Tony scoffs. “How do you think I felt? Right after you kissed me, and it was you kissing me by the way, you disappeared to D.C..”

“I was called to D.C. and you know that. Plus, I went to see my therapist to have some intense discussions we couldn’t do over the thingy, video conference, thing.”

“Stop it you know what it’s called,” Tony snaps.

Steve sighs and his shoulders slump a degree – if that’s even possible. The strength of Steve, the mountain of strength and pride and stubbornness is balanced by a more innocent view of the world. As jagged and ugly Tony views the world, Steve sees the bleak lines and the dirty places in the city as something to grow from and develop. Tony glances out at the city beyond them and knows Steve is his counterpoint, and he’ll take him however he’s willing to offer.

“You saw the ring?” Steve breaks into Tony’s reverie.

Folding his hands, and leaning forward with elbows on knees, Tony nods. “Yeah, yeah I did.” He keeps his eyes on the silent city below him. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says and Tony peers up at him, seeing Steve cannot meet his eyes either. “I shouldn’t have taken it, but at the cabin, it was hard to leave it.”

“I gave it to you.”

“You threw it at me,” Steve remarks and there’s a half serious, half sarcastic laugh lacing the words. He shrugs. “Anyway, it wasn’t mine to keep.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Tony finally says because he doesn’t know what to say.

“It means, I mean, that I can’t hold onto you, I can’t keep you if you don’t want to stay,” Steve says. “It means I’m trying to be the better man here and do that right thing and let you go.”

The gall, the unmitigated gall of the man sends Tony into a high pitched raging fit. “What the hell?” He jumps up and knows, knows down deep in his soul that he went down this path before with Steve and it got him nothing. He sucks in a breath to clear his head. “Okay, let’s not go there, let’s not go there.”

“Are you talking to me or yourself?” Steve says and flinches a little when Tony throws his hands up in the air. Since when can he make Captain America flinch?

“Jesus,” Tony says and leans up against the window, his face plastered on the glass to the city below. “I can’t do this anymore, Steve, I just can’t.”

Before he realizes it, Steve climbs to his feet and takes up the space behind him, hands on his shoulders. “I get it, I do. Let’s not do something stupid.”

“No, let’s not,” Tony says and everything shreds in him, he can’t breathe or think or even move if he wanted to. “I can’t do this.”

“You don’t have to,” Steve says. “I get it. You want to move on, it took me too long to get my head on straight.”

While Steve talks Tony feels like it’s fallen into a tunnel. All the words ricochet in his brain, reverberating with a force to damage his neurons. 

“You gave me time and I squandered it, I should have been a better man then, and I was looking for a way out instead of facing facts that I was losing you,” Steve says and drops his hands. “I have lost you.” There’s a finality in his tone that twists in Tony’s gut. 

Spinning on his heels, Tony faces Steve and very nearly pushes him away. It’s all he can do to hold back the anger. “What the hell are you talking about? Lost? I fucking love you and you’re breaking up with me. Because I thought you got it, I thought you understood that the whole armor issues was a glitch.”

Steve raises both of his eyebrows and says, “That’s some glitch.”

“It’s a glitch, or JARVIS has been compromised somehow. Natasha is grilling that little bitch Erica right now, you want to see it?” Tony spits out. “JARVIS, bring up the -, shit.” Tony nudges past Steve and goes to the large screen television hanging on the wall. He switches it on and then goes to the computer interface to access the interrogation.

“There, see?” Tony says and he’s desperate to know Steve believes him. When he turns around to get a good look, Steve is already engaged in the video play on the screen. The interrogation, as Tony calls it, captures his entire attention.

Erica sits in the room at a steel gray table, hands shoved in the pockets of her leather jacket. She’s cracking gum as she listens to Natasha. 

Natasha slides onto the table, partially blocking their view. “Tell me, what do you think of Stark.”

Erica sniffs and shrugs her shoulders. “He’s a jerk.”

Tony huffs and Steve chuckles a bit under his breath. This isn’t exactly helping his case.

“Oh,” Natasha says.

“He’s brilliant, but everyone knows that. Not sure why you’re asking.”

“I don’t know, I heard you were getting close,” Natasha says. “I want to know if I can trust you.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Erica mocks. “Listen.” She sits forward, her hands out of her pockets. “I don’t know what Stark told you, how he blamed this crap on me, but it isn’t me. I didn’t have his armor go ballistic and try and kill Captain America. I only wanted a quick screw.”

Steve makes a strangulated sound, but his eyes remain riveted to the screen. 

“And did you get it?”

“Jesus, no, Captain Sweetpants, was there. And let me tell you this,” Erica says and it’s almost as if she’s trying to be conspiratorial. “Looked to me like those two had something going on. Stark looked all guilty, and here I thought he was fucking Potts.”

“Watch your mouth,” Natasha says and stands, separating them by a meter or so. Tony recognizes that she’s trying not to intimidate but at the same time wants Erica to know who is boss in the room. 

“Okay, he was screwing Potts, but it’s obvious he’s not. He wants a piece of that ass, or, should I say, sweet pants.” She laughs at her own joke, and it’s a little too maniacal to be sane. 

“And you decided you wanted to intervene?” Natasha says and holds up her hands like she’s innocent and not threatening at all. Which is an oxymoron. “Come on, we know you were interested in Stark.”

She shrugs. “Who wouldn’t be? For his age he’s pretty good looking.”

“Ouch,” Steve says and Tony furrows his brows at him.

“Plus he’s like a billionaire. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that? And he’s pretty bright, he can keep up with me,” Erica says. “But for me, I don’t give a shit who he fucks or screws or whatever else. He wants to plug his dick into Captain America, I say go for it. And can I watch?”

“Whoa,” Steve says and his face blushes. “Where did you pick her up?”

“I didn’t,” Tony says crossing his arms over his chest. “Pepper did.”

“Wow,” Steve says.

Tony wants to agree but the questioning continues. 

“So, no hard feelings that you lost out on Stark?” Natasha says and Tony has to wonder how many times over the last week or so Erica’s heard that question. She reacts exactly the way Tony would predict.

“Like I told you before and that guy who’s trying out for a role in The Hobbit, no, I don’t have any hard feelings. And I haven’t lost out. I plan on scratching that itch one way or the other,” Erica smiles.

“Thanks, that’s all I needed to know,” Natasha says and starts to exit.

“Hey, can I leave now? I mean you can’t arrest me,” Erica says.

“No?” Natasha replies with a smirk on her lips and then leaves the interrogation room. Erica sits down with a grumble but doesn’t protest like Tony would have thought. Instead she lies her head back on the hard framed chair and sings.

“Wow, that’s just all kinds of disturbing.” Tony shakes his head and goes to turn off the television.

“No,” Steve says. “Can you turn up the volume?”

“Sure,” Tony says and hits the switch.

They can barely make out the words, and the tune is garbled, Erica can’t sing for beans. Steve steps closer to the speaker and closes his eyes to concentrate on the words. “German,” he says and cringes as he opens his eyes. “Tony, that’s Es zittern die morschen Knochen, a song by Hans Baumann. It’s the song of the Hitler youth. The Hitler youth.” 

Tony reaches for his phone before the words are half out of Steve’s mouth. “Natasha, yeah, get a guard on the door. And can you find either Thor or Bruce, we need muscle. I’m calling Rhodey to find out if he can help us out.”

“Did you see the interrogation?” Natasha says.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re still watching it now,” Tony replies. “But what’s more interesting is that she’s sitting in there singing Nazi songs.”

“Damn it,” Natasha says. “I’ll call in Hill, too.”

“Right, good, you got this?” Tony asks.

“Yeah, yeah I do. Just take care of Steve, okay?”

He peeks over at Steve who’s transfixed on the screen. “I will.”

“No worries, Stark, we got this one,” Natasha says and shut the line. 

When he looks back, Steve nods his head and seems more flabbergasted than anything else. He contorts his face to one of incredulous and says, “You know, I thought I’d only have to die once for that bastard.”

Tony crosses the short distance between them and grasps both of Steve’s hands on his own. “You’re not dying for anyone anymore, Babe. Not if I have anything to say about it.” He searches for some anchor, some knowledge that Steve understands what he’s saying. “The whole point, the point of showing you that wasn’t for you to feel like this.” He rubs his hands up and down Steve’s arms. “But the point was to show you that it was a glitch I would never hurt you, not like that, not intentionally.”

The tension running up and down Steve’s muscles relaxes and he says, “Yeah I suppose you’re right. Are you still planning on dating her?”

“What? Nazi girl? No for God’s sakes, no I never wanted to date her,” Tony says. “Okay I wanted a quick blow job but Christ, you were off with your girlfriend and then-.”

“Tony, we covered this I wasn’t off with my girlfriend-.”

He’s had enough. This is enough. Tony is not going to take it anymore. “Fuck this crap. I want you back.” There he said it, out loud and without prejudice. 

He waits and Steve stands there frozen like he’s reentered that block of ice they found him in. 

“Well?” Tony says. “I’m dying here.”

“I thought,” Steve huffs and considers Tony. “I thought you were angry with me and were, you know, with the Nazi girl because-.”

“Yes, I was, and am still angry with you, and yes I was an idiot and went to get a blowie from a Nazi. I am an idiot sometimes driven by my dick. Can we please get past that? And you were with your girlfriend.” Tony’s pointing at Steve and he realizes they are falling down the rabbit hole again, actually tripping over one another to get to the chasm and pitch each other down it.

In a little bit of a frenzy, he waves his hands around as if to erase the pathway to the rabbit hole. “But that does not matter. What matters is I love you and I want to be with you. And yeah, you got some problems, doesn’t everyone? And I know what they are and how you can end up going to the crazy zone just as much as the rest of us. But you’re working on it and I can see that and we can work with that-.”

Steve presses two fingers against Tony’s lips. “Shush, shush.”

Tony stops but the rage of need, and the need to help Steve understand boils through him like liquid metal, thick and dangerous. He goes to say something but Steve denies him.

“No, Tony, stop.” He cups Tony’s face. “Okay so you kissed a Nazi. We’ll call it even and move on, okay?”

“Okay?” Tony says.

“Good.”

“Does that mean we’re not broken up anymore?” Tony asks and it’s a wonder how Steve can play dominant when he – when they both – need him to.

Steve leans in and lightly touches his mouth to Tony’s lip. It is tender, almost too brief before he’s gone. “Yes, it means we’re not broken up anymore.”

“Good, good,” Tony says.

Before he can completely explode with the joy though, Steve says, “It does mean I still have to talk with my therapist. It means I still have to go to D.C., but I won’t be seeing Sharon as anything else but a friend. And she is my friend, Tony.”

“Okay, okay, I can accept that. Good.”

“Can you accept this?” Steve moves into the kiss like a force of nature, both gentle and present, ever expanding and encompassing. Tony cannot stop himself, and he brings his hands up to cradle Steve’s head, holding him, keeping him. The kiss isn’t rushed or passionate, it is more of a foundation, and a confirmation of their love. Tony pursues and tastes and touches, letting his hands drift downward as he feels Steve eases against him, as if the coil of tension and stress have been delivered from him and he’s free. 

Tony loves the glide of his hand down the strength of Steve’s throat and he lingers there, touching the vulnerable places. Steve allows it and it is a silent message that they are working back to their places. Even as he moves away, Tony feels the desire pool downward and his gut clenches. But then his caresses Steve’s shoulder and his chest, feeling the horrible wound, the modeled flesh that’s twisted and corded still as the serum works its magic.

Steve pulls away, hissing more to himself than to Tony. 

“Hey, hey?” Tony says and strains to glimpse Steve’s face to ensure he’s not in pain. “Come on, sit down. Eat.”

“You sound like my mother,” Steve says but he doesn’t protest, only allows Tony to lead him back to his chair and serve him the plate with the sandwich. 

“You doing okay?”

Steve nods as he engulfs the sandwich. “Rather be doing something else.”

“Are you sure that’s allowed, I mean you’re still healing.”

“Don’t think it would stop any healing,” Steve says with a wink.

“Probably not,” Tony says but urges him to finish. “You need to eat more though. Come on finish up.” He pours some of the tea from the little pot and offers it to Steve. 

“Okay,” Steve says and there’s a blissful look on his face. “I like this, this is good.”

“What?” Tony replies as he prepares the tea, hands it to Steve, offers him a napkin, and then turns to the soup. “You want soup?”

“You, taking care of me, I like it. It’s sweet.”

“Well, don’t get used to it, I don’t kiss Nazis and then try and blow you up every day.”

Steve deflates and places the teacup down. “You kissed her, too?”

“For god’s sake, we established I love you, right?” Steve bites back his response and Tony sees the red flush his cheeks as he tries not to laugh. “You know, I have to keep you away from Clint. Son of a bitch.”

“I’ve eaten two sandwiches and finished my tea, can I have dessert now?” He offers Tony that adorable dorky smile. 

“God damn it, indeed, you are going to kill me.” Tony stands and scoops up Steve’s hand. “JARVIS lock the- shit. How do normal people do this?”

“You mean how do people without a billion dollars lock the door? They get up and lock it, Tony.”

He stumps over to the door, down the hallway and then yells back. “On the bed, Babe, I want to check you out.”

By the time he’s back in the room, Steve kneels on the bed and says, “Are we going to play doctor?”

“You’re especially mouthy for a sub, you know that?” 

“Who says I’m a sub?” 

“Mouthy,” Tony murmurs again as he attacks Steve’s mouth. He wants everything from Steve and his hands work over him, then cradling his head as he slowly guides Steve to the pillows. “Lie back, Babe, I want to check you out, I want to taste you all over.”

“I missed you,” Steve says and there’s no shame in it, only his earnest appeal. As he lies on the mound of pillows, Tony straddles him, checking out his color, his breathing, every essence of him. 

“I missed you, god, Babe, I cannot even tell you how hard-.”

Steve notches up on his elbows which even to Tony looks like it hurt to stretch the skin of his shoulder and chest. “Stop, we’re here, we’re going to be better for it. Right?”

“Right,” Tony says and cups his face and seeks and finds what he’s looking for. This kiss – it’s something more of an affirmation and a potent reminder of their love. He destroys the barriers, breaks down the concerns and forges forward with his touch. His hands travel down and he unbuttons Steve’s pants. As he does he looks at Steve and sees an expression that recalls their very first encounter where everything was new and the promises bright and bold and couldn’t possibly fragment. But this time, this time, Tony knows better, he understands what he could lose, what Steve needs, and more importantly what he can provide to Steve and what he cannot. 

“How you doing?”

“Okay, I just need you to touch me, please.”

“We’re going to go soft and easy-.”

“Not too soft,” Steve begs.

“Easy, Steve, you’re still recovering,” Tony says. 

“Whatever,” Steve says with a whine to his voice and then falls back onto the cushions when Tony bends down and takes his full erection in his mouth. He hadn’t planned it this way, but then again he hadn’t really planned any of this. 

He hasn’t touched anyone since the cabin (he’s not going to count Nazi girl) and the thought of stretching his lips wide over Steve’s dick send whirls of need and want to the pit of his groin and tightens his chest. 

Steve moans and bucks a little. “Not gonna last long.”

Tony picks his head up and lets Steve’s hard cock free. “That’s the beauty of the serum, isn’t it?” When Tony engulfs Steve in one firm swallow he jerks in response, splaying his arms out and twists his fingers into the sheets.

He mumbles incoherent words as Tony licks along the width of his erection, fingering him at the same time. Then he moves lower and drags his tongue with one long laving motion along his entrance and back up to his balls. 

Steve shudders and says, “Please, Tony.”

Peering up, enjoying the show of Steve’s nearly purple cock leaking onto his lower belly, Tony says, “What’s that Babe?”

“Touch me, please, please,” Steve says and it’s very nearly a whimper. The words are so open and honest the thrill jolts into him and he’s barely able to respond. 

Tony almost blows it right there in his god damned pants, because he’s dreamed of this, wanted this for months. Steve reaches down, curves a hand around Tony’s head as he fully mouths Steve’s cock. Steve encourages him as he lines and laps at Steve with his tongue. It’s almost too much, it almost overwhelms but still he allows the feelings to wash over him in a great tide. 

With each thrust, Steve gurgles and moans and it sends electricity up and down Tony’s spine. He can tell Steve’s close, his balls are tight to his body and he yells out, “Now, Tony, I’m coming, now.” 

And he does in a great flood of heat and bitterness into Tony’s mouth. It’s too much and Tony has to let go, slipping his hand over Steve’s cock to stroke him as he rides through his orgasm. He thrusts and goes rigid with it until he’s falling, collapsing onto the bed, shivering through the aftershocks. 

Nearly dazed, Tony crawls up and gazes down at Steve. The joyful bliss written on his face is a reward Tony hadn’t guessed that he would treasure, but he does. When Steve opens his eyes, he smiles at Tony and stretches up to kiss him. He nudges and kisses with his whole body, engulfing Tony with his arms and legs. He’s wrapped in Steve, and he loves it.

“Hmm, too many clothes,” Steve says. “You never got undressed.”

“We didn’t really have a chance,” Tony says but he’s achingly hard and ready to rid himself of his clothes.

Steve struggles to sit up but that means Tony has to vacate his spot on top of him. With some wrestling, they manage it. Steve flushes and goes for Tony’s t-shirt immediately, yanking it over his head. “Waited so long-oh-.”

Tony stutters and stops. “Oh.” He glances down at his chest and sees the ring – the ring that Steve wore for months on a chain hidden away now strung around Tony’s neck.

Steve picks it up, and lets the weight of it hold him. He fingers it in his palm. “You had it, all this time? I thought it was destroyed by the blast.”

Tony stares at it like it’s the _one ring_ and echoes of Boromir whisper in his brain. _Such a little thing_. It holds as much power, as far as Tony’s concerned.

“It’s not mine to have,” Steve says almost to himself, and the ruin of his voice draws Tony back to Steve’s face. There’s something bleak but understanding etched in his expression. 

“Oh, no, Babe,” Tony pulls the ring over his head, and then opens the chain. “I want you to have it. I want you to wear it.”

“Tony, I-.”

“I know this is a horrible time to propose, but hell, we keep getting interrupted. Let’s go for it. I want you to marry me, I want the world to know we’re together. I want the world to know you’re mine.” He holds the ring out and it glitters in the broad full light of day. “Please.”

Steve considers him and then nods, “Yes.”

Tony wants to buck right there in his pants, he grasps his dick and rides it out. Steve sputters out a laugh and grabs onto Tony. He kisses him within an inch of coming in his pants for a third time today. Finally, breaking away, Tony says, “Can I please get my clothes off and show you how very much this means to me?”

Steve smiles sweetly but with a touch of the devil. “I suppose I could do that for you.”

“You suppose?” Tony tackles Steve back onto the bed, lying over him, nibbling along his throat and down to his nipples. 

While he works to bring Steve back to arousal, Steve says, “You do realize you’re still not naked.”

He lifts his head and rolls his eyes. “I can’t seem to get anything straight today.”

“Here, let me help you with that,” Steve says and reaches to unbuckle Tony’s jeans. In seconds, he’s free of the constraints and sighing gratitude as Steve fists him. He leans into Steve’s embrace, head on his uninjured shoulders as Steve rubs a thumb over the head of his erection.

“God, I could stay like this all day,” Tony murmurs and thrusts into Steve’s hand. It’s slow and languid as if he’s sinking into a stupor filled with need and the hard twisted coil climbing onward and upward to the inevitable cliff. He’s leaked pre-come all over his dick, so there’s enough lubrication for comfort. He rocks into Steve, eyes closed, luxuriating in the sensation. 

Everything funnels down to this and he’s moaning into Steve’s shoulder as he clenches onto him, wanting to stop but he can’t. Having Steve hold him, bring him to fruition is more than he hoped for, more than he wished in all these days since the cabin. Steve picks up the pace when it’s apparent that Tony’s not moving, that his intent is to come into Steve’s hand.

“Come on, beloved, come on,” Steve whispers and the sound of his voice with the endearment pushes Tony over the edge and he jerks, bucking hard into Steve’s hand. He spills and groans his breath stolen away from him. It’s too fast and too immediate, but for now, it’s enough. For now, this is the world and it is more than enough.

His strength ebbs away and he collapses against Steve, who slowly eases them down onto the bed together. For quiet moments, Steve spends the time kissing and tasting, exploring Tony. He kisses along his flank, moves to nipples and then hips. He explores deeper, longer until he has Tony resting on the bed with a pillow under his pelvis, and he’s retrieved the lube from the drawer. Taking his time, Steve prepares Tony. He speaks in low words.

“I missed everything about you,” Steve says. “So much, so much.” And he dips down again to tease at Tony’s nipples with his tongue as he continues to open him with two fingers, taking his time. 

Tony hitches and blows hot air through his teeth as Steve bites and pulls at his nipples. It sends shivers up and down his spine and he revels in the feel of it. By the time, Steve eases a third finger in Tony’s descends deeper into the feeling, allowing it to cover him like a shroud. 

“Are you ready? Tony?” Steve asks and he can only nod because words are too difficult to manage.

Steve slips his fingers out and Tony cries for the loss, and then with a bump and a prod, the head of his cock breaches Tony. Tony arches and shudders. He rarely bottoms and the intensity of the moment paralyzes him and he needs to remember to breath, but Steve gives him this moment, strokes lightly along the length of his legs. “Got it, slow breathes, bear down.”

Tony stares up to the ceiling but doesn’t really see anything.

“Hey, hey, look here, look at me,” Steve says and when Tony shifts his gaze, he slowly pushes inward. Tony grunts at first, but then inhales and arches as he’s filled totally and completely. 

“Feels so good,” Tony murmurs and Steve begins to move. The sensation throws him. The feeling overwhelms, collides in his brain and his aching balls. He can’t come again, not this soon, but feels complete – this feeling – this connection. Steve picks up the pace, thrusting, plunging deeper still. “More.” 

Shifting position, Steve lifts up Tony’s legs onto his shoulders. He shoves into Tony with a renewed frenzy, he works and moves and everything lights up around him. He drops one of Tony’s legs and leans into him for a kiss, only to rake his nails along Tony’s nipples. The sensation sends jolts of fire through Tony. He sinks deeper into the feeling, allowing his perceptions to focus only on this – it’s a keen type of awareness, singular and raw, almost primitive in its aspect. Over him, Steve bites his lip, groaning as he jerks into Tony, and he gives a shout as he comes. He grabs onto Tony’s legs as if he needs a lifeline, as his orgasm rips through him and he clenches his teeth. 

Quaking, Steve drops down and relieves Tony of his cramped position. He pulls out carefully, and pants as he curls up against Tony. Kissing a line up Tony’s neck, Steve says, “How’s it feel?”

“Hmm?” Tony mutters, he’s not tracking very well, not at all.

“Subspace?” Steve says.

“Very nice,” Tony says and realizes Steve’s right. 

“You like?” Steve asks as he plays with Tony’s hair. 

“Very much,” Tony says and he grasps Steve’s hand and brings it around to kiss his palm. He notices that Steve’s already wearing the ring, his ring. 

Steve nuzzles into the back of Tony’s throat and says, “Don’t get to used to it, I expect a nice long session very soon.”

Tony smiles and turns into Steve’s arms. For the first time, in a very long time, he feels as if things are finally perfect. He kisses Steve’s palm, the hand with his ring on it. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” 

Nazi girl detained, JARVIS soon on the mend, Steve in his arms. He thinks – just maybe things will be all right. Just maybe…


	7. Chapter 7

Tony sits back in his chair and watches the main screen. On the side screens and projected around him are streams of code. He’d been able to use JARVIS to a limited capacity, but the A.I. is not fully on line. Tony booted him up in the workshop but in a very restricted mode. He’s still trying to figure out the root of the bug Nazi girl introduced into his systems. Tony thinks he might need to spend some time out in California since the first incident happened out there. 

Even as he observes the current interrogation on the main screen, he also has a listing of different houses in Malibu up for sale. He’s not sure if he wants to build or buy, but he needs something right now because he wants to bring Steve away with him. It will be romantic and fun and a change of pace at least.

He flips through the code as the interrogation continues in the background. He’s half listening, partially for intellectual reasons, partially for information on what Nazi girl did to his beloved A.I, and partially to shore up his sense of security as far as Steve is concerned. Because right now, Steve is the one questionings her.

“You’re cute, you know that right?” Nazi girl says as she tips her chair onto the back two legs. She’s smiling like she doesn’t have a care in the world. They’re in the sterile, clean white room, the interrogation room with its metal table and chairs.

“Thanks,” Steve says in his best deadpan. And Tony knows that Steve isn’t really faking it, because the man is mentally incapable of thinking of himself as an Adonis, he still thinks of himself as the 90 pound waif that stepped into that pod. “Now, can we get back to business?”

She blows a bubble. Who the hell gave her bubble gum? It’s been two weeks since the big incident when the suit when nutso, and left Steve burnt and Tony without his sanity. She’s been on house arrest, kind of – it’s not like they have the legal authority to imprison her. But that’s something that Tony has to look into – at some point.

“Back to business, like what?” she snickers. “Like Iron Man fucks Captain America? That’d make a nice headline, wouldn’t it?”

Steve doesn’t react, doesn’t blush. He only stops his circling around the room and, with knuckles against the tabletop, bends to her and says, “Who do you work for?”

“I didn’t say I _worked_ for anyone,” she says. “And even if I did, I think you already know the answer to that one.”

“I think you’re a lot of hot air. I think you spent too much time in front of video games and the movies,” Steve says. “I don’t think you really understand what true courage is. I think right now, all you are is a scared little girl.”

This riles her up because she rockets to her feet as if someone’s pulled the fire alarm. She sneers in Steve’s face. “Little, whose little Stevie? Um? Who? Me? I don’t think so, I think you’re the kid from Brooklyn who’s walking around in a flesh and blood bag that’s never felt comfortable, has it?”

Tony quirks an eyebrow at that – where is she getting these conclusions, because it’s hitting too close, he can see it on the monitor, in Steve’s eyes. Even though JARVIS isn’t there to tell him, he can see that there’s an almost imperceptible move – Steve shifts backwards away from her. 

She smiles and blows another bubble at him as if she’s the innocent school girl she’d played. “Listen, Captain, I don’t think you get it. I don’t work for anyone. At all. Get that? Or are you too much of a misogynist to realize women can be the boss, women are powerful.”

Here, Steve plays the game beautifully when he replies, “Oh you seem to forget who I am, Ms. Holstein. While you might think of Steve Rogers as nobody but a weak sickly man, that’s the farthest thing from the truth. You ever hear of Margaret Carter? Or even Sarah Rogers? Both very important, strong, brave women in my life. I grew up as a feminist, before there was that term. My mother was one of the first generation of women to vote in this country. So don’t hang that label on me. And, what I see is not a gender that cannot rule, but a person who’s too self-absorbed with her own smarts to actually hold power of any kind.”

“Sie wären überrascht .” 

“JARVIS, translate,” Tony says and then curses. “Damn it.” He can’t believe he’s reduced to using google translate to figure out what she’s saying. Ah, you’d be surprised. Not the best comeback.

“Ja, das würde ich,” Steve returns, and Tony grumbles.

“Damn it, Rogers, how many languages do you know?” Tony does a quick translation. Not hard. _Yes, I would_.

Nazi girl smirks and, can Tony say he’s getting tired of that smirk? “Was macht Sie so besonders?”

This stops Steve in his tracks, and he blinks. Looking up at the camera feed, he almost says something and then turns back to her. “Nothing. That’s the whole point.”

“What’s it mean, Babe?” Tony says and finished up the translation _What makes you so special?_. Tony frowns at the question as if it should tell him why it causes a second pause in Steve’s demeanor. 

As Steve rounds the table and she settles back in her seat, hands in her pockets, satisfied somehow, he asks, “Who’s your father?”

“Why?” she says and it doesn’t throw her, it almost feels to Tony as if she expected the question.

“Just curious, you said he was a fan?”

She scoffs. “Something like that.” She cranes her neck backward and pops another bubble as Steve walks around her again. “You want to know about my childhood?”

Steve doesn’t answer and Tony ignores the code, the flashing lights saying there’s a good house on the market in Malibu as he concentrates on the screen.

“It was great, learned a lot about you, about your friends, about the Howling Commandos. I even learned a thing or two about Stark,” she says and here Steve shifts his eyes to the camera and then back at her. “Oh don’t worry I know he’s watching. Doesn’t he always like to watch?” She smiles and Tony cannot get over the feeling that she knows something she shouldn’t.

“You know, great to visit the places where you did your greatest work, fought your foes. All that garbage,” she says as she checks her cuticles. “You know what I liked the best?”

“What’s that?” Steve’s not reacting, he’s at ease with his hands clasped behind his back and he stands to the side and watches her.

Her face loses all pretense of an innocent school girl, and there’s something wick and evil and ugly about her now. “Ich mochte gerade Ihr Freund schreien, wenn sie sperrten ihn in den Stuhl zu tilgen seine Erinnerungen an Sie .”

Steve turns white, deathly, horribly white and he crosses the room and hits the panel requesting an exit. It takes forever for the confirmation to allow him leave. 

“Christ, what did she say to you?” Tony says and tries to type out what he heard but he’s not exactly sure of the spelling and he reverses it to go through it several times. He’s not through with it when a text pops up on his phone. 

“Bucky.” 

That’s all the text says and Tony cannot make any sense of it. He leaves the console and races to the elevator. Before he enters the lift, he taps out, “What?”

He rides the elevator down with his phone clutched in his hand, waiting for reply. The doors open and he’s on the level where they’re keeping Nazi girl, but Steve’s standing in front of him, still pale, visibly shaking.

Tony catches his wrist and pulls him inside. “What the hell happened? What did she say?”

“She said, Ich mochte gerade Ihr Freund schreien, wenn sie sperrten ihn in den Stuhl zu tilgen seine Erinnerungen an Sie.”

“Fuck, I know that, what does it mean?” Tony says and hits the penthouse button.

“It means she watched them torture Bucky, she was part of it. I read up on it from a file Natasha was able to get. They had this machine, they’d lock Bucky in and torture him, wipe his brain of any memories. She watched, Tony, she watched,” Steve says and punches the wall of the elevator, denting it. 

“Whoa, there,” Tony says as the elevator sputters to a stop. The emergency lights go on even though the regular lights are still functioning. He strokes a hand down Steve’s back. “We’ll figure this out, okay?”

Fisting both of his hands, Steve stands rigid and nods without speaking.

Tony opens up the control panel of the elevator, switches a few buttons and it starts again. They’re at the penthouse floor in minutes. He grabs a hold of Steve’s hand and leads him to the couches. “Sit.”

Steve follows direction but he’s vibrating with anger, and energy, and something unknown – something dangerous. Before he does something stupid, Tony says, “What do you need me to do for you, right now?”

“Get her the fuck out of the Tower,” Steve says. He looks up at Tony from his place on the couch as Tony stands over him. “Because I will fucking kill her with my bare hands if you don’t.”

Tony nods. “Stay here, don’t move, Okay?”

Once he gets a confirmation that Steve will stay put, Tony takes a few steps away and opens up a connection on his phone. In seconds, Natasha answers, “Get her out of the Tower.”

“Why? What happened?”

“She knows something about Bucky, she was there,” Tony says. “Find out what she knows, it might give us a clue to find Barnes. But get her out, now.”

Natasha, smarter than most give her credit for, says, “Steve’s dangerous right now, do you want someone with him? Where are you?”

“No, I can handle him,” Tony says and gives a sidelong glance to Steve. “Call Rhodes. Get her out of the Tower.”

“Okay, I’ll see who I can muster up to take her. Hill’s got a guard on her. Do you want me to make sure Steve cannot enter?”

He scratches at his hair and nods. “Yeah, do that. I’ll see what else I can do here for Steve.”

There’s a pause and she doesn’t disconnect. Instead she says, “Stark, Tony, be careful. What was in that file, shows the very worst of what they did.”

Tony realizes she’s talking about what happened to her as well. “Okay. I’ll make sure.”

“Good,” she says. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Tony says and presses the button to disconnect. By the time he’s rejoins Steve, there’s a frantic look to his eyes. 

“It can’t be Zola, the time doesn’t make any sense, at all,” Steve mutters.

“Zola?” Tony says.

“Her father, her father must have had some connection to Hydra and the Red Skull. Some of the things she said to me, they were from him.”

“Zola?”

“No, the Red Skull – like what makes you so special?” Steve shakes his head and leans forward. “He was determined to find out why I turned out one way and he ended up completely different.”

“Yeah with the red nightmare face,” Tony says and takes his place next to Steve on the couch. He wraps an arm around Steve’s shoulders. “It could be any of them. Hell, it could be Pierce for all we know. There were a lot of Hydra agents.”

Steve deflates and covers his face with his hands. “I cannot even imagine what Bucky went through, what they did to him. But the files – the files were terrible, Tony.” He pauses for a moment. “She could be our key to finding him.”

“She could be, but right now, we have to focus on you,” Tony says. “I’m having her moved, and we’ll have help trying to crack her, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says and he’s quaking under Tony’s touch, still. “If I talk to her, I might kill her.”

 

“What do you need me to do, right now for you?” Tony tangles his fingers with Steve’s, feeling the weight of the ring against his hand. 

“I have too much energy, right now. I don’t know I need to work it out. Maybe I should go to the gym?” Steve says and stands and then sits back down again.

“What?”

“I want to feel secure,” Steve says. “I want to know that everything I built here, and now isn’t going to disappear. That we’re safe. That things will be safe.”

Tony kisses his cheek. “Don’t worry I have Natasha and Hill on it. All’s good.”

“No, I want validation,” Steve says and looks at Tony. “Would it be okay to ask for a session?”

Something tight and heated drops in Tony’s gut. “A session?”

“Yes, I would like to feel today. I would like the numbness to go away and I’d like to validate us.” Steve inhales, holds it, and says, “This isn’t about trying to run and hide, Tony. This is me, wanting to know we’re secure, safe, together.”

“Okay, I think, if you want we could go to bedro-.”

“No, I’d like a session, don’t tell me you don’t have a playroom somewhere in this massive Tower.”

Tony rubs at the back of his neck and tilts his head. “Yeah, I do.”

“Let’s break it in.”

“Are you sure about this? I don’t like the idea of you using this to escap-.”

Steve scowls. “I’m telling you how I feel, straight out, Tony. So don’t go all bullshit therapist on me. You don’t know how to do it and shouldn’t attempt it.”

Tony stares at him, a little shocked and a lot awed. “Okay, Captain’s orders.”

“You got that straight. Now where is it?”

“It?”

Steve huffs but the joking has released much of the tension. “The playroom, I can’t wait to see it.” He claps his hands.

“Okay, okay. Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, I’d like to work out some of the tension, and I’d like to validate we’re going to be okay. I feel good about this Tony, honest.”

Tony holds Steve’s hand and leads him toward the playroom. “It’s locked and I’m going to have to work on the control panel to get through it since JARVIS had it under his control.”

“Oh.”

“Well, someone impartial had to,” Tony says and ushers Steve down the hallway to the playroom. They first enter the main bedroom of the playroom which does not require the code to enter. This is the room that functions as their bedroom during sessions. Tony made sure it was connected to the main master suite but this is not the same bedroom. This one is made for ease and aftercare.

The large bed has a plethora of pillows and cushions with the bath only steps away so that Tony can bring Steve to it and clean him, massage him with the heated massage table. The room flows right into the playroom. Tony stops and releases Steve so he can peel off the covering of the control panel. It takes a few tries but he unlocks the door and turns on the lights. The most miraculous thing about the playroom with its cool ocean and sage colors and appointments to soothe and create a safe place for Steve to fall into subspace is the large window array to the South corner of the room.

Steve balks at it and halts before he enters the room.

“Don’t worry, it’s impregnated with special tech that allows us to look out but no one to see in. I thought it would be kind of cool for you to hang out here and-.”

“Get fucked for the world to see?” 

Tony raises an eyebrow at Steve’s language, he is on edge. “The illusion. And it’s completely separate from JARVIS so it’ll work today.”

Steve considers it and comes to the conclusion. “I like it.”

Smiling, Tony says, “I thought you would. Now, come.”

Steve scans the room with its lounges, and couches with a fireplace. A place for binding, and the specialized chair they’d used in the cabin (though this one is an upgrade and far superior), and the instruments and toys.

“Where would you like?” Tony says and can’t finish his sentence.

“Binding, first I would think?” Steve says. 

“Are we still with the color scheme for safewords?” Tony says. 

“Yes, but I’d like to be gagged this time,” Steve replies as he begins to touch each toy, each instrument of sexual desire.

A little taken back, Tony says in a slow drawl, “O-kay?”

“I need this Tony, please.” He’s not begging which is an interesting aside. Tony puts that away for another day and decides to march forward, judging as he must throughout the scene.

“Good, then, since you’ll be gagged, I won’t move from your side. I supposed you would like to be bound for -.”

“A few hours?”

“Okay, let me get my tablet, while you go and strip. You can put your clothes on the bench in the corner. The fireplace is natural gas. Turn it on if you get cold, the switch is on the wall.”

Steve nods and, even as Tony leaves to fetch his tablet, he starts to pull off his clothes. Tony goes to his master bedroom of the suite and digs out a tablet. He quickly sends a text to Natasha and she immediately answers that all is well and to take care of Steve. If he was a jealous man he’d be a little off put but he knows Natasha wouldn’t do that to him – or to Steve. 

When Tony returns Steve is fully naked and sitting next to the fireplace which is still not lit. 

“Are you ready?” Tony places the tablet on the table with a few bottles of water he collected from the small refrigerator in the room. 

“Yes,” Steve says. “Gag, first?”

“If you’d like.” Tony goes to the wooden cabinet that’s a rich cherry wood, and opens it to pick out a simple gag. He doesn’t want anything too elaborate, they haven’t played too much with gags. He also gets the jute rope. He kneels next to Steve on the floor and says, “I’d like to bind you open so that I can still prep you for later. Is that okay?”

“Yes.” Steve looks like his nerves as popping and jumping as much as Tony’s are.

“So, I’ll bind you, and lay you out on the floor, there’s a nice mat under the carpet. Plus we have a number of differently formed cushions and stools to prop you up. Okay?”

Steve clears his throat and there’s a hot flush to his skin. He looks glorious and Tony remembers why he always loved to do this to Steve. 

“Ready?”

“Green.”

“If you need to I’m going to leave one hand with the ability to snap your fingers. That way you can signal distress,” Tony says and picks up the gag. Before placing it in Steve’s mouth, he gets a stick of lip balm and puts it on. “Otherwise, it can get uncomfortable.”

He slides the gag in place, it has a rubber cock to lay on Steve’s tongue and it fastens easily around his head. It isn’t elaborate at all. Tony positions the pillows around Steve so that he can ease back on them. “It’ll take a while,” he warns and then begins. It does take some time. He’s careful and talks all the way through it, encouraging Steve and praising him. His muscles are gorgeous like a living sculpture and Tony caresses them as he ties. He takes his time around Steve’s near erection, bringing him to full hardness, before he slips the rope loosely around his balls and down into his entrance. He’s takes care to place a knot right at his entrance so that it will stimulate him. It’s a knot though he can easily move away when it’s time.

Slowly, he weaves the rest of the jute. Pulling Steve’s legs apart and bent at the knee. He brings each leg up to his chest and ties it off. One hand is used to grasp the knee and then other is left free, but the arm is tied close to his body. 

As he finishes he checks his handiwork seeing that Steve’s freeing leaking pre-come and a nice shade of aroused pink. Tony pulls a little on the jute around his balls, it’s loose enough so that it won’t strangle. He situates the pillows to take every bit of pressure off of Steve’s joints.

“How’s that Babe, good? One click for bad, two clicks for good.”

There’s two clicks and Steve’s closing his eyes as if he’s falling asleep. Tony goes to the cabinet again, retrieves the lube and a plug. “I’m going to prep you, if that’s all right?”

Two clicks.

It doesn’t take as long as Tony thought it would, but then again he’s working with a super soldier here. There are little whimpers every now and again and Tony stops twice to ensure that he gets two clicks. He does. 

He has three fingers in and he asks, “Is it okay for me to put in a fourth?”

Two clicks but Steve’s eyes open. 

“You don’t have to?”

Still two clicks and he notes that Steve’s eyes are blow wide to black and it titillates Tony so much that the air is robbed from his lungs. He shifts because his dick throbs in his jeans. He asks the next question, “Do you want me to fist you?”

Steve pauses but his breathing speeds up and Tony rubs his hand over Steve’s leg even with the jute lacing. “It’s okay if you don’t want it.”

Two clicks.

“You want it?” Tony asks again, just to be sure.

Two clicks.

“Okay, nice and easy.” Tony has four fingers in and the places his thumb with more lube on the tips of his four fingers and forming the shape of a duck bill, slides his lubed hand into Steve’s ass. Steve reacts by tensing.

“Calm, Babe, you don’t have to do this. It’s too soon. You don’t have to. Do you want to stop?”

One click.

He pushes in a little further as Steve relaxes and then with the tips of his fingers hits the sweet spot. It’s almost too much for Tony to see; his hand wrapped inside of Steve, his knuckles breaching him, opening him, using him to confirm their connection. His own dick is hot and heavy in his pants and he’s having difficulty regulating his own breathing as he thrusts his hand in tiny motions. He tries stretching his fingers but only a small bit and it sends a shudder through Steve, straining the ropes. Tony swallows hard, seeing Steve penetrated and wide open drains him of all thought.

There’s a muffled groan and Steve struggles against his bindings as he arches. He throws his head back and he’s coming before Tony’s even able to thrust a second time. He strokes in a few more times as Steve rides his entire hand. The sight of it tightens in Tony and he feels like all of his insides have dropped out, like there’s no blood left in his brain. It’s all in his dick, he’s sure as he watches Steve come.

“There we go,” Tony says and finally slips his thumb out. The drag must hit the right spot again because Steve moans and tosses his head on the cushions, then jerks a bit more on Tony’s hand. “Good, you did so good. You should see yourself, taking my whole hand.” Tony eases his fingers out and then wipes them on a cloth. He gets the plug and lubes it.

“I’m going to plug you now, and let you rest. Is that okay?” 

Two clicks and Steve’s already closing his eyes again. His belly is a mess with come, but he’s blissed out and careless in a good way. 

Once the plug is positioned, Tony stands up, washes his hands at the sink basin near the cabinet, and takes off his own clothes. His dick hurts in his pants and the scrape of his boxers against it is doubly painful. He ends up cuddling up next to Steve and holding him with one arm and using his other hand with bent knees to hold the tablet. 

It takes him some time to concentrate, considering, but he’s able to because he wants Steve to rest after their play. He spends a good hour plus going through the data he has on JARVIS and compares it the West and East Coast data. It’s a jumbled mix, but he thinks he has the clues down and begins the fix. It won’t be easy so he writes out some notes. During the middle of this Steve shifts and Tony checks on his status. All is good.

“Do you want some water?”

Two clicks.

“Okay, the gag is specially designed,” Tony goes and gets the bottles of water. He sits Steve up a little though it does take a little maneuvering. He pulls off the top of the gag near the base of the rubber cock and fixes the bottle nozzle to it. “It should drip into your mouth. Suck if you want a stronger flow.”

Steve downs the entire bottle. 

“Geez, do you want the gag out?” 

He gets one click as an answer. 

“Okay,” Tony says and replaces the cap on the rubber cock in Steve’s mouth. He tosses the bottle in the recycling shoot. “I’m going to check the plug now.” He moves it around a little, shifting it and shoving it until Steve’s skin flushes and he’s panting a bit around the thick synthetic cock in his mouth. 

His own dick is hard and aching, but he doesn’t want to do Steve here. He has other plans. So he spends a good amount of time using the plug as a dildo, but it doesn’t work well so he goes and gets a thick dildo out of the cabinet. He lubes it up, removes the plug, and shoves the dildo in sending Steve through the roof with it. 

“There you go,” Tony says. “You’ve been doing great, but we’ve only just started. How would you like for me to fuck you in front of the windows? Would that be good?”

Steve bucks on the dildo and Tony twists it a little. It’s a special one he designed as well, but he hasn’t warned Steve – yet. Instead he tries it out – though it’s a tiny bit out of the rules of play to do this. He thinks Steve will approve. He presses the button on the end and it expands in Steve.

He judders to a stop. 

“Like that, do you?” Tony asks. “It’ll expand. I’m going to expand it by one point five right now.”

Two clicks and Tony does it. Steve opened and splayed and helpless and loved turns over in Tony’s gut and deeper into his sac. He plays with his own dick as he fucks the dildo into Steve. He turns it up, widening it by one point seven five. If Steve can take his hand, then he can take this as well. After a few brutal thrusts, Tony cranks it up to two times.

“It’ll knot you when I expand it again, do you want that.”

Steve is making little whimpering noises now. There’s drool pooling along the gag and his eyes are wild with lust. He clicks once and Tony, though disappointed is ready to decrease the width when Steve clicks again.

“Two clicks?”

Steve tries to nod, though it is difficult, he manages it. 

“Okay, click once if it’s too much,” Tony says and it expands. It knots Steve and there’s a bleary look to his eyes as he fucks himself on the knot.

Steve convulses in his bindings and he explodes, coming for what seems like an eternity. Tony grasps him in his arms as Steve comes and comes, and it feels like he’s holding the world. He realizes as Steve yanks at the bindings and his cock turns purple with climaxing, he is holding his world in his arms. 

He leans down and kisses his temple. “God, baby, I love you so much.” 

And Steve comes again, immediately, abruptly and painfully. Tony rocks him through it until finally it ends and he’s limp on his restraints. “Okay, baby, I’m going to turn it down and then get you out of the jute.” 

Steve whines a protest and Tony shakes his head. “No, that one hurt. I want to still have some more fun and this is getting too deep, too quickly.”

He turns down the dildo and it decreases in side and Steve cries out a little as it automatically slips from his ass. Tony puts it aside for cleaning and then turns back to the task of getting Steve out of the ropes. The art of removing the ropes is as sensual as tying them on. To weave and create is one thing, to alleviate and soothe is a different experience.

He’s careful to remove each knot and then massage the muscles and joints. Steve’s only been in the binding for a little over three hours if they count the time it took Tony to bind him. But it’s been a while since they’ve done this, Tony’s pleased with Steve’s reaction and his own dick it dense and hard between his legs. Every time he looks at Steve’s ass and his hole still glistening with lube with the memories of his fist inside, he nearly comes. 

Once he massage and calms Steve he asks as he removes the gag. “Something to eat or would you like a bath?”

“Are we done?” He seems a little disappointed.

“Not by a long shot, just wanted to make sure, if you wanted a break.”

“Maybe some more water?” He rotates the shoulder that was injured but the flesh looks pristine and he doesn’t grimace.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks and hands over another bottle of water and a candy bar. “Herseys.”

Steve chows down on the chocolate bar and drinks down the water. “I’m good, really, good.”

Tony smiles and Steve returns it. He leans over and clasps Steve’s hand. “Come.”

He brings Steve over to the windows and assures him. “No one can see us but the view is completely unobstructed. I invented the glass with embedded nanites.”

“Neat.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “The really neat thing is that the nanites respond. If we want mirrors.” Tony stops and then commands, “Mirrors.” The nanites switch and the windows change to mirrors. “And back, windows.” The windows come back.

“Wow.”

“Here’s the wow part,” Tony says and slides a hand up on the window frame and triggers a release. Cuffs appear. “You’ll need to kneel and then I can lock them on.”

Steve follows orders without a question. He lifts each wrists to the cuff and Tony clicks them in place around his wrists. They’re comfortable and shouldn’t mark too much. He’s bound with his face to the window.

“Would you like some impact play?”

Steve grips the chains that link the cuffs to the mechanism in the window frame. “Yes, please.”

Tony rubs his dick against Steve’s back a few times. Really the man has a delicious shoulder to waist ratio. “I could get off just like this.”

“Tony, you haven’t actually fucked me yet. You never get that far,” Steve says and it’s almost comical and sweet at the same time.

“So call me hopeless.” Tony reaches up and touches the ring on Steve’s finger. “Every time I see this I get a little overboard horny and crazy.”

Tony kisses the juncture of Steve’s shoulder and neck. “I want you so much.”

Steve lies his head back against Tony and says, “You have me.”

“Forever.”

“Always.”

He kisses and runs his arms around Steve to play with his nipples as Steve moans. Tony’s dick slides along Steve’s crack as he tugs and pinches nipples. “I swear if I keep this up I’m going to miss out again.” He gives him a quick peck on the cheek and jumps to his feet to find the whip.

He picks the cat of nine tails and tells Steve to press his face against the glass and push his ass out. “Legs wide please.”

Steve obliges him and Tony caresses the line of his ass. “Beautiful.” Then he hauls back and slaps it hard. Steve quakes and his cock begins to stiffen. “You can come whenever you need to.”

Without preamble, Tony checks the weight of the whip and then swings his arm to strike Steve on the ass. The crack of it breaks the air and Steve clutches his restraints as he heaves in a breath.

Tony hits twice more and Steve grunts in response. “Not enough?”

“Maybe not?” Steve says and his voice sounds a little shaky.

“A paddle?”

“Please?” 

Tony exchanges the whip for the wooden paddle with holes in it. The sound of it against the air when he swings is perverse like a whining whistle. He hits hard, smacking him on the right cheek, leaving an impression on his perfect skin. Steve groans and flinches at the same time. He pants and, through gritted teeth when Tony hits again, says, “Perfect.”

“Again?”

“Yes, please.”

Tony marks the other cheek and asks, “Again?”

“Yes, yes.”

“What’s the magic word?” Tony asks wondering if he can stretch it this far. 

“Please, yes, please.”

Tony slams the paddle twice more hitting his ass and then his balls, causing Steve to arch away, but beg at the same time, “More please, more.”

“Beg, you know I tell you how good you are, and you never tell me,” Tony says and his dick is leaking and he needs so much to be inside Steve. The need is more than physical now, it’s a mental imperative. He’ll go insane if he doesn’t get his dick in Steve’s ass before the day is out.

Steve stutters.

“Color?” Tony checks in.

“Green, definitely green.”

“Well, then, beg. What do you have to say?” Tony says and draws the paddle up and into Steve’s crack. He rubs it there as Steve whines as he arches into it.

“Yeah, yeah, want you to hit, please. Please.”

“Why?”

“I love you to hit me, show me you love me. Show me I’m yours. All yours. Only yours. Fuck me, please don’t make me beg.”

“I’ll make you beg, baby.”

“Anything then, anything for your cock up inside, filling me, fucking me. Marking me. Mark me, Tony please.”

Tony whacks him another half dozen times and he hears the splatter of come on the window as Steve sounds like he’s half in this plane and half ascended to another. 

“Oh God, oh God, Tony, Tony,” he says and slumps slightly in the cuffs. 

“Baby,” Tony says and drops the paddle, glimpsing the harsh marks raw, red up and down his ass, his legs. Tony cannot fathom what his abused balls must feel like. He embraces Steve, roaming his hands up and down his ass, tenderly cupping his balls. “Baby, you did so good.”

Steve whimpers and leans his head against the cool glass. “Waited long enough, please Tony, please. I need you inside of me.”

“Oh Baby, you don’t have to wait.” He reaches over to his supplies and picks up the lube. “Gonna be in you, fill you up.”

“Make me wet, please Tony, I need you to fill me.”

The pleas go straight to his groin and he groans as he strokes the lube along his dick. “You ready?”

Steve drops his head back, and says, “Please, please.”

“Here you go,” Tony says and stuffs his dick in with one firm stroke. 

Steve calls out, strangulated and grabbled. Tony’s not sure what he says but he jerks back onto Tony and pants. “Love it, God, Tony, you don’t know.”

Tony thrusts into Steve, rocking his hips with a fierceness. He’s tighter than Tony would have guessed considering their play today, but once again the wonders of the serum. 

“Baby, baby.” He’s almost chanting it as the sensation spreads over him, as filling Steve, and being enveloped by Steve becomes his one universe, his one moment in time. He falls into this moment, sinking into it, embracing it as he wraps his arms around Steve. 

“Above them all, showing them, I’m yours,” Steve murmurs and, for a moment, Tony doesn’t understand what Steve is talking about but then he understands it’s about the city below them. As they make love over the city it’s more than a confirmation, it’s a sacred kind of affirmation of their bond. 

The idea of it, the awareness becomes an acute feeling so bright, so potent that Tony cannot help but brace his one hand on the jut of Steve’s hipbone, while he jerks Steve off with the other. His thrusts becomes more frenzied, more hurried as Steve continues his litany, his vows. 

“All yours Tony, I want to be all yours, always. Please, more, please know it, please.”

“Always, Babe, always,” he says and he cannot speak anymore, he cannot hear anything. All he can do is follow the tide of feeling as it slams into him and he does what Steve wishes, he fills him and fills him, until he thinks every drop of moisture from his body has pulsed out of him. Nearly finished, Steve begins to orgasm again, his ass clenching around Tony as he spills over hand. The throb of his dick throws Tony as he tries to come again, almost immediately. It’s demanding and stressful and hurts like hell but feels so good he cannot explain it. When he’s done, he’s tumbling backward and falling.

Barely able to catch his breath, Tony climbs back up and kisses Steve’s back. “Babe?”

“Good, good,” Steve says and his face is a wonderful heated pink color and his eyes are bleary. He clings the cuffs. “Please.”

“Oh, you don’t have to ask twice,” Tony says and, even though his legs feel a little wobbly, he manages to get to his feet and unlock the restraints. Steve collapses and squeezes his legs together. “Hurts?”

“Achy, good, but achy,” Steve says.

“Come on, we’ll get cleaned up and I’ll order some food.” 

It takes the two of them to get to the bathroom with its large Jacuzzi tub and large walk in shower. They settle on the Jacuzzi and while Tony deposits Steve in the water as soon as the tubs full and he’s finished in the small toilet stall, he doesn’t get in himself. Instead, he calls for take-out and then sends a text to Barton to deliver the food. 

After he finds his way back into the playroom he sets the automatic robotic cleaners to work, and goes to the bath to sink into the water with Steve. “How are you doing?”

Steve has the jets on and is leaning against it, head in his folded arms. “Good.” He doesn’t look up, which is all kinds of concerning.

Tony puts his hand on Steve’s back and rubs circles. “You okay?”

“Hmm,” Steve says and looks up. “I’m good, just tired, need to sleep.”

“You just finished healing, maybe we shouldn’t have-.”

“No,” Steve says and turns. He cups Tony’s face and then leans in for a kiss. 

“You’re sure?”

“Tony, I could be in this room all day with you. Let you do anything and everything you want. I’m good, very good.”

Tony slides an arm underneath Steve and then goes further into the water, allowing Steve to settle against his chest. Steve’s hand lands where the arc reactor used to be. 

“You never told me how you fixed this,” Steve says and lightly plays with the skin.

“No I didn’t.” He doesn’t offer an explanation and surprisingly, Steve doesn’t demand one. 

“You’d tell me if it was necessary?” Steve asks.

“Sure, if it is was necessary. And JARVIS knows so if I’m incapacitated, he can tell you.”

“He’s going to be okay?” Steve says and Tony’s touched that he sounds genuinely concerned.

“Yes, I have a good handle on it now. I won’t bore you with what Nazi girl did, but she’s actually pretty brilliant. She didn’t do a singular attack. It was multi-pronged and extremely complicated. I have all the notes on my tablet.” He kisses Steve’s temple. “I’ll be able to start working on it in the morning. Tonight, we’ll eat in, watch a movie. Maybe a candlelight dinner later.”

“Sounds good, right now, I want to be right here,” Steve says. Tony takes this as his clue to allow them some time to rest. 

It is quiet and peaceful and there’s a pleasantness to it that Tony would never have guessed. Lying with his arms around his lover, knowing this man will be his husband someday brings a certain tranquility to him. He kisses Steve periodically as they lay in the bath together, the jets of water gently playing around them. 

Eventually, they climb out of the water and Tony pulls the plug, turning off the jets. He gets Steve into a thick robe after they dry off. Padding to the large bed, he ushers Steve in and tells him to rest. His phone is buzzing.

He checks it and sees that Clint’s pissed but has the food in hand. He dons a robe and goes to the hallway and opens the door. 

“You know this is becoming a habit,” Clint says.

“A good one,” Tony snickers.

“You good in there? He’s with you?” Clint peers around his shoulder and Tony doesn’t take it as an invasion of privacy but more of a question of concern.

“He’s resting. Long day, you know.” He picks up the bags of food. “Did Natasha get Nazi girl out of the Tower?”

“Yeah,” Clint says and scratches at his stubble. “We were able to move Holstein out, but Talbot insisted she had to be moved by the military.”

“Is Rhodey in on it?”

Clint shakes his head. “Not right now, he’s on a mission.”

“That’s probably not the best,” Tony says. 

“Hill tried to get them to allow us to do it, but it wasn’t pretty and we didn’t have the resources or the legal right to keep her locked up,” Clint says.

“Do you know if we have access to her? She might have info on Barnes.”

“Natasha is working on it,” Clint says.

“Okay, okay, we’ll figure it out in the morning,” Tony says. He lifts up the bags of food. “Thanks.”

“Don’t do it again Stark.”

Tony only grunts at him and turns, as the door closes he hears Clint sing out, “Congrats on the engagement.”

Smiling, Tony heads back to the bedroom area and finds Steve curled up under the blankets but awake. He has a remote and is flicking through the channels on the television mounted on the wall. 

“I thought you said you were tired?” Tony says and clears a space on the nightstand and then puts the bags down. “Chinese?”

“No, Irish,” Steve says and grins.

“Sweet.” Tony climbs into the bed and chucks his robe as Steve has done on the foot of the bed. They curl together on the bed, kissing and touching. Finally, Tony rests his head on Steve’s chest. “I missed you so much. I can’t even tell you.”

“Shush,” Steve says, and lightly brushes his hand over Tony. “We’re good now, Tony. Everything is good.” He stops his hand and shows the ring to him. “You know I have one for you, now.”

Tony sits up and says, “What?”

Steve clasps his hands onto Tony’s. “It’s what the candles and wine were about on the Observation deck. I was going to propose.”

He doesn’t even know what to say, considering moments after he bumped into Steve on the Observation deck, they ended up beating the crap out of one another and then the suit went haywire because of crazy Nazi girl. “Damn.”

“You got that right,” Steve says, laughing. “I think the ring is still up there, unless Clint pawned it or something.”

“Well then,” Tony smiles and lays down onto Steve, body against body. “Later we’ll have to get it.”

“Later,” Steve says and wraps his arms and legs in a tangle around Tony. “Much later.”


	8. Chapter 8

His phone wakes him up and he reaches for it. Steve cuddles up against his side, sleeping heavily. Tony considers this a win since it’s well past the time Steve would normally get up for a morning run. The phone buzzes again, and he carefully dislodges Steve, and successfully does so without disturbing him. He answers the phone as he pads across the floor toward the ensuite bath. “What the hell time is it?” 

“Time to get your ass out of bed, and help out?” Clint answers on the phone.

“What do you need, asshole?”

Clint exhales noisily into the phone and says, “I got a call to go check some Hydra bases out with Rhodes. I’m taking Natasha along with me. Not sure if you want Cap to come along, or-.”

Tony peers over his shoulder at Steve whose still snoring on the large California king sized bed. He closes the bathroom the door. “No, I don’t want him to come along. He’s only just healed.”

“It’s intel from the latest and greatest Nazi bitch,” Clint says. “Might be relevant as far as Barnes is concerned.”

Tony sits on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub, messing up his bed head hair and says, “Do you know it’s Barnes related?”

“No, not really, but it does seem to have Hydra science written all over it, and Natasha had some ideas that it might be related to training areas in Russia,” Clint says, he pauses but then adds, “Listen, I could pretend I never called.”

“You could,” Tony says. “But what good would that do me? I’ll tell him, but I think you should move out since you’re already briefed and ready to go. Can you have Rhodey patch us in?”

“As soon as you get JARVIS up and running, he’s not going in with Warmachine.”

“Damn it,” Tony sighs. “Okay, I’ll work on it today. Get it together and move out. Where’s your rendezvous point?”

“Bruce knows, but he’s not coming. If Cap wants to join in the party late, have him talk with Bruce.”

“Okay, that sounds like a good plan. Thanks,” Tony says and presses the disconnect button. The idea that Rhodes and the rest of his team will be going into a Hydra nest without armor chills him. “I have to get JARVIS up and running today.”

He quickly cleans up, noting he still needs to finish tidying the playroom, though the bots cleaned everything up. “Damn, how do normal people do this?”

“Do what?” Steve hangs on the door frame, his hair messed, his eyes bright and glittering. “Come back to bed.” 

After their session, they’d spent the better part of the day and the night lounging. Steve had been quite strung out, deep into subspace and Tony encouraged him. Throughout the night, he’d used some techniques to help Steve stay there. All involved a certain super soldier’s ability to orgasm in multiple ways. Steve still looks bleary eyed. He also looks magnificent in his nude form. Sometimes, Tony wishes he was an artist rather than a scientist.

“Can’t,” Tony says. “There’s some Hydra shit going down-.”

“I need to suit up,” Steve says but Tony catches his arm and shakes his head.

“Nope, you’re staying here with me.”

“Tony, this is my duty,” Steve says, the strident tone of his voice recalls Captain America.

“Yes, I know but-.” Tony stops and he really has no excuse for keeping Steve here, but he throws one out anyhow. “I don’t think you’re ready.” He’s actually down with that idea; Steve might not be ready to run after the next Hydra nest. “Considering you nearly went ballistic on Nazi girl and never even considered the fact that she might be your one and only chance to find out some good intel on Barnes.”

His words shake Steve, enough that he steps back out of the bathroom and ends up on the bed, bleak and defeated. “I’m not thinking rationally, am I?”

Tony follows him and sits on the edge of the bed. He clasps his hand over Steve’s. “Listen, if it means anything, I got your back. We’ll work this out together, okay?”

Steve nods but Tony knows he’s been knocked, more like jerked out of subspace and that’s a dangerous proposition. He needs to stay put and take care of Steve, right now, right here. Leaving will only exacerbate Steve’s feelings and could lead to subdrop, which is something that Tony would like to never see again – ever.

“Do you want me to get you out some clothes?”

Steve only says yes in a small voice and his eyes are not focused as if he’s processing all the events, putting together pieces through the haze of coming out of subspace at the same time. Tony lifts his chin with a single finger, and then presses lips hard and harsh against his mouth. It’s a rough kiss, intended to be so, intended to ground Steve and works its way through the web of his fears, doubts and worries.

When he releases Steve, Tony says, “I know that I’m the only person you show this side to.” He searches Steve’s face. “The stoic Captain and the one who isn’t hurt by all that could happen or did happen is shown to the world. Let me help you, this time. Let me get you through this.”

Steve smiles and it is small but happy. “Thanks, it’ll be nice not to have to be alone.”

“Okay,” Tony says and stands up. “Let me get you some clothes.” He realizes the only clothes Steve has in the penthouse are the ones he was wearing yesterday. Gathering up the robe, he tosses it to Steve. “Take this. I’m running to your floor and getting you some clothes.”

“Naked?” Steve asks.

“Hmm?”

Steve gestures at Tony. “You’re naked, you might want to think of dressing yourself.”

Tony looks down and rolls his eyes. “Okay then, first order of business. Get my ass dressed.”

“And a fine ass it is,” Steve remarks as Tony disappears into the closet. 

“Oh, you can have some of it later on, Baby cakes.” He tears into his closet, pulls out some jeans and a t-shirt, not really caring what’s on it. With boxers from the drawer he’s dressed and on his way down to Steve’s floor. He doesn’t know why he never thought to bring up Steve’s clothes. They’ve been sleeping together since they finally made up a little over a week ago. Clearly, this is an oversight by Steve. By the time he makes it back with an arm load of clothes and Steve’s shield, he hears the shower and peeks in.

He needs to go and work on JARVIS, but he wants to ensure that Steve will be okay. “I’m going to the workshop to check on the progress with JARVIS, you okay?” 

Steve’s body doesn’t have a mark on it, considering their play yesterday. Steve looks over his shoulder, soap streaming down from the shampoo in his hair. “Everything’s good.”

He leans against the shower door, watching his love, and smiling. “You know, you’re really amazing.”

“You only say that because you love the body,” Steve says into the pounding water.

It’s said in jest but it pierces him – a thorny rose. “What?” His voice is tight, harsh, and almost raw.

Steve twists around and glimpses his expression. “No, geez, no.” He walks out of the shower stream and catches Tony’s hands. “I’m joking like everyone else would. I know it’s more-.”

“Damn right, even if you were skinny assed Steve, you understand that?” Tony says and he’s adamant, more so than he’s ever been.

Steve chuckles and pops a kiss on his nose. “I know, now go. I want to go to the gym today.”

“Are you sure?” It would be his first time since the accident.

“I’m sure, Thor’s going to run me through my paces before he leaves to visit Jane this afternoon.”

“Okay, love you. Come check in after?” Tony asks.

Steve smiles over his shoulder. “Sure, Tony.”

After a few hours in his workshop alone, Steve surprises him by knocking on the door. Tony had spent a good three hours recoding parts of JARVIS’ most basic codes, rebuilding him practically from the ground up, pasting his foundation back together again. All the while, he both curses and admires Holstein’s work. It’s really too bad she’s a Nazi because she’s freaking brilliant.

When he spots Steve standing at the door, pointing to the lock, Tony nods and decides to take his rudimentarily fixed A.I. for a ride. “JARVIS, open sesame.”

“Are you cooking, sir? You are not presently in the kitchen area,” JARVIS responds.

Steve knocks again, and frowns a little aggravated and a lot confused. Tony waves at him, mouthing JARVIS, and then points to the door – leading to all kinds of clear as mud communication.

“Okay, JARVIS, my man, just open the door.”

“Sir, I am not a man and to which door do you refer, the Tower has a number of doors, and by current count it number-.”

“Stop, belay that order,” Tony says and curses. When he looks up at Steve, there’s a look of panic on his face and he’s physically trying to break down the door. Before he crashes through the glass door, Tony halts him with up raised hands and crosses the floor to the control panel. He releases the lock. “No need to go all Captain America on me.”

“Still having problems with your A.I?” Steve walks into the work space and stares at the strings of holographic data streaming around him. He tilts his head as he notices the numbers are upside down.

“No, no, why would you say that?” Tony grabs the number set, balls it up, and pitches it to the side but instead of neatly disappearing it reopens and the data code starts flashing through the information at dizzying speeds.

“Well, it kind of looks like you are,” Steve says and kisses Tony on the temple. “I wanted to let you know Sam’s coming over for a bit. We’re going over some of the information Clint and Natasha already gleaned from their interrogations with Holstein, and what the military can give us.”

“Who’s your contact at the military?”

Steve shrugs. “Not military.”

“Then who?” Tony prods and hopes to hell it isn’t that twat Talbot. “Military has their hands on her, right.”

“Actually, yes and no,” Steve says and scratches at the back of his neck.

“Steve,” Tony warns and he’s a little pissed off after the progress they’ve made.

“I don’t want you to get upset, but it’s a Joint Departmental project and Defense has called in Intelligence to help out,” Steve says and he’s looks like he just got caught sneaking out the window for a date by his parents.

“Sharon, you’re going to see Sharon.” His mouth feels dry.

“With Sam, I’m going with Sam.” Steve opens his hands as if to show how he’s completely defenseless. “It’s business only, you have to understand that.”

Tony inhales through his nostrils, holds it, and then slowly releases it through his mouth. He blinks a few times as if he’s clearing away the scattered data, the data that convicts rather than understands. “Okay, okay.”

Stepping into his personal space, Steve wraps an arm around Tony. “It’s only for a few hours. I’m going to talk with her and Sam. We’ll be at the coffee shop down the street, the one you like.”

“The one I like,” he parrots and then cringes because maybe he won’t be able to step foot inside of that quaint little place that smells like coffee beans and vanilla and doesn’t glower with big corporate hippie signs anywhere. “Sure, that’s great.”

“Oh,” Steve says and moves slightly on his feet as if the awkwardness in the room betrays him and he’s starting to sink. He grapples like he’s trying to fight the quick sand. “You could come, do you want to come?”

“That’s the question every cheating spouse actually asks,” Tony says before he can shut his god damned mouth. He bites back his words and presses his lips together before pacing away from Steve. He faces Steve to see the shock, hurt look before he tools his features. Tony throws his hands up. “Stop, it’s me. I know, it’s me. Don’t say anything please, erase what I just said, please.”

Steve swallows a few times and Tony imagines that he’s actually forcing his words back down. After a minute, he clears his throat and says, “Okay. Would you like me not to go?”

Tony weighs what Steve is requesting and he cannot say yes, but he cannot say no. He decides on the truth. “I’d like it if you didn’t go.”

Disappointment etches his features but he seems prepared to allow this one request from Tony. “Ok-.”

“But I know that you need to go,” Tony says, he slumps down. “So, yeah, go.”

Steve considers him. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I don’t like the fact that you’re going to meet your ex-girlfriend to get intel on your old boyfriend, but yeah I can deal.”

Steve encompasses him with strong arms and Tony, unabashedly, buries his face in the comfort of his shoulder. Carding his fingers through Tony’s hair, Steve murmurs, “We’re going to be okay, Tony. I know it.”

“Yeah.”

They stand like that, with Steve quietly stroking his hair, and Tony hanging onto him – hanging on to their hopes. He’s not leaving forever, he’s not going on a mission, he’s not leaving their relationship, Tony keeps telling himself. He’s just going for coffee. “You’ll be okay?”

Steve breaks away from their embrace, but doesn’t release Tony. “Well, I’m a lot more clear minded today.”

Tony studies him to make sure all residual effects of the subspace and their session yesterday have dissipated. Steve reads him like a book.

“I’m fine. Still a little buzzed underneath, but that helps me keep my head on straight, helps me to remember I have you here waiting for me.” Steve kisses his knuckles. “Plus, I feel like I have to kind of make up for acting like a fool yesterday and not realizing Holstein is a good lead to find Bucky.”

“You were upset, don’t beat yourself up over it,” Tony says.

Steve quirks his mouth and his eyes twinkle with the obvious reply. Instead, he leans down and kisses Tony on the lips, quick and tender. “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.”

“Text me?”

“Sure, oh and I have a surprise, later,” Steve says with a wink and is out the door before Tony can protest further.

“Well, that went extremely not in the direction I wanted it to go,” Tony says and picks up a wrench to toss it across the room.

The lights all go red and alarms flash. “Oh for Christ’s sakes, again, JARVIS?” Tony goes to the console and manually locks down the alarm system. “Stop, just stop. You’re over reacting to everything. Can’t believe the day has come when Dum-E is the best bot I’ve built.” The one armed bot squeaks in delight and Tony rolls his eyes. 

He needs to scrub the entire code for the alert systems. He’s going to take it off line. He hits the comm link. “Brucie bear, I’m taking the alert system off line.”

“Okay?” Bruce replies over the speaker.

“Just telling you in case, you know you want to Hulk out, give me a warning or something,” Tony says and switches the comm off as he hears Bruce chuckling. At least he can make someone smile.

He’s over reacting, and touchy about his relationship with Steve. He knows he should expect it, but he needs to do something about it. He punches in the number for Pepper. 

“Hey, Tony.”

“I thought you were visiting us,” Tony says as he adjusts the volume. He really needs to finish up with JARVIS.

“Well, since the whole JARVIS incident things have been a little out of control here.”

“Out of control? We kept the incident locked down here?” Tony says and he’s genuinely concerned that Pepper broke his trust and reported to the Board of Directors that he lost control of his suit and attacked Captain America. “You weren’t supposed to tel-.”

“Hold on, no, I didn’t tell anyone, Tony.” Pepper says. “I was going to visit you and then the incident happened and you shut down all of JARVIS. Do you know what that means for manufacturing? We had to replace what he was doing with an outdated version. It’s running at less than forty percent capacity. It’s slowing everything down.”

“Christ,” Tony says and sinks to his ratty old couch. “I’m, shit, I’m sorry, Pepper. In brighter news, JARVIS has been able to notify me when there’s an alert or a danger in the lab space.”

“That’s good,” Pepper sounds more cheerful. “That’s good, right?”

“Depends on your point of view, I would suppose. But Pepper, I need to ask you your opinion.”

“Shoot.”

“Hypothetical.”

He can hear her roll her eyes – if that’s even possible which he knows is not, but still. “Hypothetically about you and Steve and your relationship.”

“That transparent, huh?”

There’s a fond chuckle in her voice. “Yes, a little.”

“Okay,” he pauses. He’s making too much out of this and he needs someone to tell him. “Steve went out with his ex today.”

“That sounds bad.”

His brain drops out of his head and quite literally forms a pile of goo on the floor, not unlike half chewed spaghetti. “Wh-what?” he manages to spit out.

“Well, what do you think?” she says and there’s a kind of pity in her voice that he hates.

“I think I had mind blowing kinky ass sex last night, that’s what,” he snaps at her. This isn’t what she’s supposed to be telling him. “And I think he went out with Sam to talk with his ex to go over some intel, that’s what.”

“Oh well, when you put it that way,” she stops, waiting for him, and then he catches up.

“Oh, yeah, right,” he sighs. “You’re right. There’s nothing to worry about. I don’t know how I function day to day without you, Pepper. Come back to me.”

“Only if you want to run your own company.”

“Shit, I think I have to get on that cloning project-.”

“Don’t you dare, Tony Stark,” she replies and there’s a touch of anxiety in her voice as if she truly believes he would do it.

Maybe. He shakes himself out of that stupor and says, “Thanks, Pep.”

“Anytime, Tony,” she says and the fondness has returned to her voice. “And get JARVIS working again?”

“Soon,” he replies and cuts the connection.

Over the course of the next hours, he immerses himself in the code and starts to unravel parts and pieces of it. He upgrades and re-establishes it, all the while he runs through new ideas and brings up his map for an intelligence with self-awareness that can take up the mantel of having to deal with threats instead of the Avengers. They need help. Only six (possibly seven when counting Rhodey) to defend the Earth against the big bads the human populace generates as well as the passing idiots from space seems a little underwhelming to Tony. Right now, as he’s tweaking the code he begins to move forward with plans to figure out how to utilize technology on an advanced plane to change things, shake things up.

“Um, are you thinking or sleeping?”

Tony jolts and sits up from where he’s lying in the middle of the workshop floor, the rings of code and his scribble floating around him like a veil of rain. “Working, Brucie bear, always working. What can I do ya for?”

“Going to the little Indian restaurant you wanted to try out, thought you might like to come.”

Tony rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes and they water. He dabs at them. “What time is it?”

“A little after four. A late lunch or early dinner, which is it, I don’t know. I’m hungry.”

Tony pops onto his feet. Steve’s been gone a good three hours or so. “Nope, I think I will stick around. Steve’s supposed to come back soon.”

Turning, Bruce starts to leave but then halts and says, “He’s good for you, you know. You balance one another.”

“Is this some of that Eastern philosophy crap?”

“And if it is?” Bruce asks, one eyebrow raised in question.

Tony shrugs. “I think I like it?”

“Good, good, see you in a bit,” Bruce says and goes to the door. “By the way, JARVIS let me in because he thought I was delivering pizza. Not sure what’s going on, but he’s letting anyone in right now.”

Tony scowls. “Thought I had that little quirk fixed. I’ll get to it. Thanks Bruce.”

This time Bruce only waves and disappears out of the workshop toward the elevator. Settling back on the floor, cross legged, Tony looks up into the universe of code. He finally sent the corrected code to the modified version of JARVIS that runs manufacturing out West. It seems like Holstein started small, with the simplest versions of JARVIS, feeling her way and learning as she went. Once she advanced through one version, she’d tackle the next. It’s completely logical, even coldly rational. He still cannot imagine what she hoped to achieve, other than a way to get to the Avengers, and finally to Steve.

“At least we mitigated that threat.”

“What threat would that be?”

He startles and spots Steve hanging on the arm of the couch, lounging really as he studies Tony.

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” Steve says. “JARVIS let me in, said I could put the pizzas on the console.” He stands up and ambles over to Tony who’s still lying on the floor. “Funny thing is, I don’t have any pizza.”

“How dare you come into the inner sanctum without the proper offerings of pizza and wings.” Tony climbs to his feet and rings his arms around Steve’s neck so he can practically hang off of him. “How’d it go?”

“Precisely as you would imagine,” Steve says, kissing Tony’s earlobe, tasting his throat. “Holstein isn’t talking, all the information she’s given us so far seems bogus. Natasha and Clint are actually on their way back. Apparently, she did request her one phone call.”

“Did Talbot give it to her?” Tony asks.

“Yes.”

“Did he listen in?” Tony presses his lips together, if that twat didn’t listen in, Tony’s going to start believing that America actually does respect the privacy of its citizens.

“Of course.”

“Oh, my complete lack of faith in the system is justified. What did he find out?” Tony says and, while they haven’t parted from one another’s arms, they are paused in their exploration, their kisses.

“Not much, she spoke in some kind of coded German that’s a lot of nonsense. They’re trying to figure it out now,” Steve says. “But-.”

“But it means she’s not alone.”

“Exactly,” Steve says and steps out of the circle of Tony’s arms into the river of data and code as it courses around him. The blue hues of data against Steve with his lightning blue eyes and fair skin mesmerizes Tony and he only wants to forget the responsibilities of the day and bring Steve back up to their bedroom….and it is _their_ bedroom from now on.

Steve breaks the spell as Tony curses. “Any progress on JARVIS.”

“Fifty, fifty,” Tony says and walks over to join Steve. He points at the cleaned up code. “This is the good stuff. I went back to the basics of his code and refurbished it. Right now, I have the JARVIS- required for SI production back on line.”

“Tony, that’s great, I bet Pepper’s happy to hear that,” Steve says with a grin.

He tilts his head. “That’s true.” And he wonders why he hasn’t heard from Pepper about his miraculous accomplishment. Truly, the work of a genius is never appreciated. He scans the codes. “Here, I’m going over it with a fine toothed comb. It looks better and better – this is Main JARVIS or what you know as JARVIS. I’m actually quite proud of this little tidbit, here.”

Steve concentrates on the code and, although he probably cannot make heads or tails of it, he asks, “What’s it mean?”

His phone starts to buzz, and he half hears it. It’s probably Pepper ready to finally give him the accolades he deserves. He turns back to Steve, excited and happy. “It means I can actually write a rudimentary sentience into the code.”

Steve shifts his glance to the code and then back to Tony. “Tony, I’m not sure-.”

“Don’t discount it, just because you don’t understand it.” The phone buzzes again and JARVIS interrupts them.

“Sir, according to incoming data, there is a pizza delivery man awaiting entrance to the Tower.”

He rolls his eyes and says, “Seriously, JARVIS just let Bruce back in.” He has to get that quirk worked out.

Steve is still concentrating on the data, on the images like twilight fireflies surrounding them. “I’m not discounting it, I think it might be a good idea to think about the parameters-.”

“There are no parameters; it doesn’t even exist yet, and you’re already throwing it in the trash heap of bad ideas,” Tony snaps, turning off the phone. Pepper can wait.

“Whoa, where is this coming from?” Steve says with his hands held up and his eyes wide. The code reflects like a cascade of truth in Steve’s eyes.

Tony pulls in a few refreshing breaths and nods. “You’re right. We need to step back. I can explain it to you-.”

“Yes, you can,” Steve says and hooks his arm into Tony’s to lead him out of the kaleidoscope of holographic images. “But right now, you’re not.” Steve tosses his phone on the bench with Tony’s. “Neither of us are going to do it, right now.”

“We’re not,” Tony says as Steve drags him to the door of the workshop. 

“Not right now, because right now, we’re going up to the Observation deck,” Steve says and a soft, quiet smile crosses his lips. “Right now.”

“Right now?” Tony says and something wonderful tangles his heart until he’s barely breathing and they’re in the elevator on the way up.

Steve draws him close and he presses into the weight and solidity of the man. He meant it earlier when he said he would love Steve as a 90 pound waif or the epitome of a Greek God. Right now, the strength holds him up and silences his brain, and the worries and concerns of the day.

“Right now,” Steve is saying through the haze. “I’m going to bring you up to the roof, I’m going to show the entire world what I want and why.” His voice holds power over Tony and the sensation lures him into the spell Steve creates with his hands, with his words, with his kisses.

The lift opens and Steve squeezes his hand and brings him out onto the beautiful deck of the Avengers Tower. This Observation deck over looks all of lower Manhattan with its steel girders and glass shrines reaching into the skies like pillars to modern day gods around them. The sun glints and plays with the shine of the steel, it loves the steel and metal, brightening it like a faceted crystal, like a thousand gems scattered across the open island of Manhattan to grow into stalagmites.

“Come,” Steve says and the glow of gold and orange and piercing white of the setting sun blots out everything. Tony follows along, quiet and nervous. He feels like a school boy, he feels a little foolish, he feels as bright as the amplified light around him.

Steve leads him to the chairs that are set along the curved glass to the observation globe, the deck is like a spear to the sky, a lightning rod reaching up to the heavens. The room is entirely enclosed with glass and steel framework, but it gives the illusion of sitting out on the edge of the world, the precipice of the city.

As Tony sits down in one of the chairs, Steve turns and picks up the champagne that’s chilling in an ice bucket to the side. A single candle burns against the glow of the setting sun. Using the corkscrew, Steve pops the cork and pours the bubbling champagne into two flutes.

“It’s been too long since I thought about doing this,” Steve says. He hands one of the glasses to Tony. “You offered me a ring and it wasn’t the best of times for me. I very nearly lost what we had together because I was caught up in the pain of the past.”

Tony holds the glass, but he thinks his hand might crush it. His nerves sputter and spark and he feels like he’s looking at his life through a camera lens, as if he’s not truly living it but watching it.

When Steve bends down to one kneel, Tony gulps back his need to squeeze his eyes shut. He’s too nervous; it reminds him of the panic attacks he had after the battle of New York. But this is a different New York, a new one with promises and hopes.

“I don’t want to lose you again, Tony,” Steve says on one knee, clasping his hands. “I want to hold you, and be with you, and love you forever.” He slips a ring, heavy and solid in Tony’s hand. “I want you to be my husband. Will you do me this honor?”

Tony wants to crack a joke, like did Steve ask Howard first? But instead, he picks up the ring. It’s beautiful and it matches the one already on Steve’s finger. Tony nods and, with parched lips and spasms in his throat, gasps out, “Yes.”

Steve slips on the ring on Tony, and then grabs and crushes him to his chest. He buries his face in Tony’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t move. It’s beautiful and right and Tony knows they’ve crossed the hurdle, they’ve come a long way from barely knowing one another to friends to lovers and beyond.

“I love you,” Tony murmurs but before Steve can reply, Tony catches sight of something headed toward the Tower in the sky. He sits up straighter, scanning the skies.

“What?” Steve says, and instantly he’s on guard. “What is it?”

Tony’s been through this before, he’s been in the same situation. “That copter is headed right for us.”

“What?” Steve gets up as Tony stands. They each take a step toward the elevator at the same time JARVIS announces.

“Sir, your pizza delivery is here.”

The doors of the lift open and six heavily armed men swarm out. Immediately, Steve jumps into action. He pushes Tony away but there’s nowhere to hide but behind Steve. The guards ignore Tony, targeting Steve, falling on him in an all-out assault of hand to hand combat. At the same time, the helicopter lands on the pad.

“Get the gun, Tony,” Steve says as he punches a man in the throat – he goes down – and then Steve swings up and kicks another of his attackers in the face. Tony scrambles for a gun but one of the men spins around and sends off a volley of gunfire before Tony can get his hands on it. He’s lucky to dodge the pelting bullets. Another of the attackers has Steve by the throat and Steve slams the man against the window frame. Another dozen men race out of the military helicopter and Tony can only be too happy to see the military, for once, coming to his rescue.

They disappear from the landing pad to run up the metal stairwell while Steve flips the man holding him and then punches him in the face. Tony whacks another of the men, grabbing the gun finally and pointing it at the last one. He raises his hands in surrender but he smirks at Tony.

The dozen men from the helicopter finally appear pouring out of the stairwell and encircling them.

“About time,” Tony says.

The last one up the stairs stops and yanks off his helmet only to reveal he’s not a man at all – or a soldier for that matter. She tosses the helmet, revealing his violent magenta red hair, and pulls out a gun, a Glock.

“Nazi girl,” Tony says. All of the assault rifles are trained on them.

“I prefer Sinthea Schmidt,” she says and her words are heavily accented now. She indicates Steve. “You are not the only one with a means to cheat death, my friend.”

Steve jerks forward as if he’s launching an attack. She shoots immediately, hitting him in the kneecap. He crumples to the floor and Tony chokes out a yelp.

One of her henchmen grab him by the shirt and she laughs, “What? You were having a romantic getaway? How sweet.”

“This isn’t how it has to be,” Tony says and his eyes never leave Steve as he hisses on the floor with blood and bone splattered around him.

“It doesn’t?” She smiles. “Please tell me how it can be?”

“You don’t have to do this to him.”

“Oh yes I do,” she returns and walks around Steve who has unbelievably climbed back up to his feet, balancing on one leg. “Yes I do.” And she shoots out the other knee cap.

Tony cries out even though Steve remains silent only grunting from the pain. “Jesus Christ, you crazy bitch, what the hell are you doing?”

“What should have been done by my father all those many years again, Captain America. The great America icon, the pervert, who would have guessed?”

She raises her gun and aims it directly at Steve’s head.

“No, god damned it, no,” Tony says and leaps to block her from targeting Steve. Two of the men clutch him and drag him away. “No, don’t do this.”

She considers him with a wide selfish smile and then she asks, “Why, why should I not?”

“Because no matter what you do, or how you do it, you won’t win. We have the means to stop you.”

“Your military couldn’t even stop me, you couldn’t even stop me with your famous A.I., tell me how will you stop me.”

“We have a Hulk and a god, you tell me, you bitch,” Tony says and kicks out at the men holding him. They falter for a moment and it’s all the time that Tony needs. He elbows one in the solar plexus and kicks one in the groin. He catches a gun as it flies out of his attacker’s hand. He aims the barrel and gets off two shots, killing one and severely disabling another, and then swings around to clear the deck when the Nazi bitch holds Steve by the hair with a gun to his temple.

“Would you like to wear his brain matter?”

“Tony, don’t,” Steve says and she backhands him with the butt of the gun but doesn’t release her hold. Blood sprays from his mouth.

“Steve,” he says and drops the gun. He has no choice. He can’t offer up Steve to these maniacs. “Please, please don’t do this to him.”

She smiles, and it is sweet and demure as if she’s that school girl again. “Whatever you say.” She lets go of Steve’s hair and he drops, the blood from his ruined legs a messy pool on the black tiled floor.

“I’m on a tight schedule,” Schmidt says as she smirks at Steve. Bringing her wrist to her mouth, she says, “Fire her up, we’re leaving.”

Two of the goons seize Tony by the upper arms but he bats at them, flailing to fight them off. Two shots punctuate the air and he spins around from his struggle to see Nazi bitch with her gun pointed at Steve’s chest. 

“Those were warning shots, Stark. Now, you will come with us,” she says.

What he watches, he sees in slow motion, he sees it over and again like some bizarre muted play. Steve grapples to clutch her boots, then heaves himself into her, expending valuable energy to shove her down. She topples with a screech and her henchmen go into a barrage of activity, swatting and battering Tony. 

When she crawls to her feet again, she screams, “Enough.” Everyone freezes. The gun still in her hand. “I’ve had enough.” She points the gun and fires two slugs, hard and harsh point blank into Steve’s chest. Only a strangulated gasp comes out of Steve before he’s silent.

The strength, the power to stand leaves Tony, abandons him along with the ability to breathe. He only manages a choked stridor. There’s something in the way, he cannot bring any air into his lungs. Someone manhandles him and they haul him out of the observation deck. He struggles though he cannot coordinate the movement, he’s broken, his limbs are not working, nothing’s working. He fights to get to Steve’s side and for a moment they let him, they allow him this small favor.

But as he bends down, as he cups his hand on Steve’s deathly ashen face and spots the blood staining his lips, he hears them.

Laughing.

Whipping around, he yells, “You son of a bitch, you god damned Nazi whore.” 

She rushes at him and kicks him in the face. He tumbles down over Steve, trying to protect Steve from the lunatic. The goons are on him then, pulling him up, towing him toward the stairs.

They heave him up and force him down the stair well. He keeps turning and struggling, battling them even when she threatens with the barrel to his temple. 

Finally, she relents, “Go to the copter and I will allow you to call for help.”

He has no other choice but to surrender. He goes to the large helicopter, obviously stolen from the US military and he’s buckled in as the rest of the attack force barrels inside. The pilot waits and then she leans forward and says, “We’re good, Rumlow.”

“Taking off,” the pilot replies and the copter begins its ascent. 

She snickers at him and tosses Tony her phone. “You didn’t think I would do it, did you? Go ahead, make the call.”

He stares at the phone and realizes he doesn’t know any numbers to call. He doesn’t fucking have them memorized they’re all in his phone or in JARVIS’ memory. Hands trembling, he hits the keypad, for torturous minutes he’s frozen and then he finally connect to SI headquarters, one phone number he remembers.

“Stark Industries, how can I help you have an Innovative day?”

“Get me Pepper Potts.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but Ms Potts is not recei-.”

“Fuck you, this is Tony Stark, get me Pepper now,” Tony screams into the phone and Nazi bitch laughs at him.

“Sir, I cannot simply put you through on-.”

“Use the voice recognition software, your A.I, that is now fucking functioning has it. Use it now, you pea brained idiot,” he growls. 

The helicopter circles the Tower twice as Tony talks on the phone. She keeps a gun trained to his head as he speaks. He waits at least thirty seconds as the idiot processes the call. He hears a sequence of tones and then a voice comes through.

“Tony?” 

Sweet baby Jesus, yes, Pepper. “Pepper, listen to me, please listen to me.” He peers up at the bitch and she only glowers at him. “Call Bruce, call someone in New York, get them to the Tower. Steve’s been shot, get an ambulance. Please, Pepper, please.”

All the while he speaks she’s talking over him, scared, frightened, overwhelmed. “What’s going on? What, Tony? What happened to Steve? Oh my God, Tony, oh my God.”

The Nazi Bitch snatches the phone from his grip and tosses it out of the helicopter. Clutching the front of his shirt, she leans in and whispers in his ear. “And you thought this was about him, didn’t you? You thought it was about getting my revenge. Didn’t you.”

“Sin?” Rumlow says from the pilot’s seat.

“Do it.” 

The helicopter veers around and aims directly at the Tower’s observation deck. From the sides of the copter, the weapons’ arrays open.

“Jesus, no, no,” Tony says and lurches forward. She catches his collar and tugs him in close.

“Now.”

The missiles launch like daggers fine and true and perfect, threaded to his very soul. They explode on impact, the Observation Tower obliterated in seconds as a fireball burst outward. 

“You thought this was all about him,” she says into his ear again. He cannot do anything, he’s paralyzed. She laughs, “Maybe a little.”

He tries to suck in a breath but cannot.

“”Maybe a little.”

Rumlow chuckles in the cockpit.

And then her eyes, those colorless eyes zero in on Tony and she says, “But mostly, it’s about you Stark, mostly I wanted you. And now, I have you, all to myself.”

He looks at the ring on his finger, the heavy weight of it and can only see the flames of the fireball reflected in the band. 

“It’s over,” he whispers and knows the profundity of loss.

**Author's Note:**

> All translations were from Google translator, so I apologize to my German language readers!
> 
> _Before you go a little ballistic on me for the ending - it's necessary to end it this way. And you will know why during the next story. Sorry!_
> 
> Part 10 of this series will be called: _And All of Death's Angels_  
>  I hope you enjoy this story. For those of you wigged out about Sharon - don't be. I am a Stony gal over 110%.  
> For updates and discussions about my stories follow me on [tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com)


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